Green Grid Radio

Engaging and transformative reporting on the environment, energy, and sustainability

Tag Archives: climate change


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S5E3: The Human COP

Factual clarifications: As of Earth Day 2015, Yeb Saño is no longer the Climate Commissioner of the Philippines. Additionally, our comment about the COP process emerging from the IPCC AR1 is probably a little too simplistic and overgeneralized. Fast for the Climate Coordinator, David Tong aptly noted that the COP process emerged from the Rio Earth Summit (1992). Both the Rio Earth Summit and the IPCC AR1 came from the World Climate Conferences.

Climate change in the news again… It comes up in the periphery during record droughts in California or large weather events like super-typhoon Haiyan in late 2013, as well as directly during the Obama Administration in announcements like the bilateral cooperation on climate change between the US and China. Climate change resurfaces in the mainstream media from time to time. The elephant in the room is perhaps that the international community cannot seem to agree on a unified way to address climate change.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the international body tasked with convening state leaders to discuss, negotiate, and ultimately produce binding global agreements or treaties. But why have we surpassed the 20th Conference of Parties (December 2014), and why has this been going on for over 20 years? What about the voices of those not in the UN, or those who do not negotiate in these sessions?

Interior of Warsaw National Stadium during the Conference of Parties 19, before an NGO action, photo by Adam Pearson

I attended COP19 in Warsaw in 2013 as a SustainUS delegate (and in stealth-mode Green Grid Radio Producer), and this week’s episode presents some of the stories of those in civil society who seek to enact change in the UNFCCC process through a human approach. Featured is the work of negotiator trackers in the “Adopt a Negotiator” initiative, which aims to paint a personal  face on the negotiators. And we hear the story behind “Fast for the Climate,” the narrative of solidarity (and spiritual cleansing) in response to the devastating Typhoon Haiyan.

SustainUS delegates being interviewed by Grist, photo by Adam Pearson

SustainUS delegates being interviewed by Grist, photo by Adam Pearson

Philippines negotiator Yeb Saño, who started the fast, has since become a major force in advocating for climate action, while the Fast for the Climate continues as a global movement, tying environmental justice, faith-based, and activist groups together.

Listen here:

Hosted by Adam Pearson and Mallory Smith, produced by Adam Pearson, and co-produced by Diane Wu.  Our guests this episode include Colin Rees, Lucas Burdick, Anita Raman, Ryan Madden, Lidy Nacpil (Jubilee South Asia/Pacific), and Hamzat Lawal. Further resources include:

Hamzat Lawal of the Adopt a Negotiator project, photo by Adam Pearson

Hamzat Lawal of the Adopt a Negotiator project, photo by Adam Pearson

Music in this episode (via the Free Music Archive) from: James Blackshaw, Podington Bear, The Augustus Bro Gallery Six, High Places, Keinzweiter

Make sure to subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store, if you haven’t done so already.

Green Grid Radio producer Adam Pearson in action in Warsaw, photo by Ryan Madden.

Green Grid Radio producer Adam Pearson in action in Warsaw, photo by Ryan Madden.


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S5E2: Thinking Outside the Green

We started out here at Green Grid Radio reporting on how to make our energy sources “green” — our very first episode was called “Renewable Energy at Stanford and Beyond”, followed by easy listening “Integrating Wind and Variable Resources in a Renewable Power Future”. Since 2012, we’ve broadened our focus dramatically, bringing you shows on meat, ocean privatization, the sharing economy, climate activism, and coffee.

https://i0.wp.com/www.greenillusions.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Cover-Green-Illusions.jpg

This shift happened for many reasons, but one personal motivation I had to produce shows beyond discussions of energy research was this talk I went to back in 2013. Ozzie Zehner, author of Green Illusions, gave a lecture about the darker side of solar energy production that is rarely discussed in the mainstream environmental discourse. I was fascinated, read his book and called him up to be interviewed on Green Grid Radio.

As you’ll hear, Ozzie suggests some tactics far outside the traditional scope of environmentalism that are refreshing, potentially high impact, and . . . fun! Listen to this episode if you’ve gotten tired of hearing the same old story about how to make the world a greener place.

Hosted by Adam Pearson and produced by Diane Wu.

Featuring audio from this talk by Chris Field, and this Swedish television show.

Music: “Night Owl” by Broke for Free.

More on converting garages for other uses in San Francisco here and a 2014 report about housing in the Bay Area authored by SPUR here. And here’s that study on TV ads and letters to Santa!


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Coming up in S5E2: An interview from the archives!

Hello listeners! This week we’re bringing you an episode featuring Ozzie Zehner, author of Green Illusions and subject of my very first Green Grid interview back in 2013.

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Ozzie Zehner. Photo from kcad.edu.

Though this piece has been sitting in our archives for a few years, don’t worry — it’s aged gracefully. The discussion of energy production versus energy reduction is still fascinating, and you’ll hear how revisiting this conversation recently helped me shake off some environmental ennui. You will also hear what Swedish children’s television sounded like in 1970.

The episode will be released this Thursday May 7 on iTunes, at Soundcloud, and right here on this very blog.


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S4E7: How The Tractor Ruined Farming

Green Grid Radio returns to the topic of food. This time, we go all the way back to the farm, and to the promise of the tractor. The tractor that promised to make life for farmers easier and our farms more productive.

In today’s episode, however, we meet a man who shares a story about the true impact the tractor had on farmers, and ultimately on our ability to grow food.

Hosted by Diane Wu, produced by Erik Olesund and featuring Matt Rothe.

Music used in this piece:

“TENNESEE HAYRIDE” (byJason Shaw)


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S4E5: Stanford’s Divestment in a Tale of Three Meetings

Stanford University made national news on mainstream media outlets last week, when the Board of Trustees announced the decision to divest the $18.7 billion endowment from coal investments. This is a story of the student activists who were called into a surprise meeting with Stanford administrators and walked out smiling and speechless.

Fossil Free Stanford, the student group behind the divestment push at Stanford since the fall of 2012, has been holding actions on the Stanford campus to raise awareness and mobilize support. (Disclosure: Diane is a volunteer for Fossil Free Stanford’s graduate student campaign). The group is part of a larger movement coordinated by 350.org to rid University campuses across the country from fossil fuel investments, due to the impacts that individual companies have on climate change. The Fossil Free Stanford story has appeared prominently in previous Green Grid Radio episodes.

krishna at rally

Krishna (left of speaker) at a Divest Harvard rally in April 2013. Photo from firsttheretheneverywhere.org

Krishna Dasaratha participated in the Divest Harvard movement while enrolled at Harvard through 2013, then joined Fossil Free Stanford as a graduate student this year. The Divest Harvard students have faced some hurdles on their steadfast course for divestment, including the President’s “unequivocal” statement that the school did not intend to divest in late 2013, and the recent May arrest of a Divest Harvard activist.

Dasaratha notes that the big difference between the Stanford and Harvard campaigns has been that Stanford’s Board of Trustees is held to investment responsibility, and have therefore been more receptive to discussions with the students who have been arguing that climate change causes “substantial social injury.” And in Spring 2013, The Leland Stanford Junior University Board of Trustees accelerated the time horizon of their decision to divest from coal.

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Krishna Dasaratha. Photo from Fossil Free Stanford.

Listen here:

Featuring Stanford students Krishna Dasaratha and Mikaela Osler. Hosted by Diane Wu and produced by Shara Tonn and Derek Mendez. Further resources include Krishna’s recent op-ed in the Boston Globe.

 


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S3E8: One Nation Under Meat: The American Dream Strikes Back

This week we returned to the topic of meat production and food systems, exploring political and economic barriers to change in the U.S. and abroad, ways to move toward a less environmentally and socially destructive food system, and our own thoughts and perspectives on these critical issues. Like last week, we followed the wisdom of one of our guests, Dan Blumstein, and experimented with talking about food over food; Green Grid Radio team members Mallory, Adam, Erik and Diane discussed politics, education, climate change and energy, the world food economy, interconnections in the food system, local food, diversification, American eating habits and social norms, top-down versus bottom-up change, and more!

S3E8: One Nation, Under Meat: The American Dream Strikes Back

Image attributed to Meriwether, American Meat (2013)

Guests include: Stanford undergraduate student Caroline Hodge; Matt Rothe, Fellow at the Institute of Design at Stanford; Environmental Earth System Science Professor Rosamond Naylor, of the Center on Food Security and the Environment; Graham Meriwether, Director of the documentary American Meat; Eli Zigas, Food Systems and Urban Agriculture Program Manager at San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association; UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Professor Dan Blumstein, author of Eating Our Way to Civility; Professor Christopher Gardner of the Stanford School of Medicine; Vasile Stanescu, Stanford PhD candidate in the Program of Modern Thought and Literature; and Debra Dunn, co-founder of FEED Collaborative and Professor at the Institute of Design at Stanford.

Hosted by Mallory Smith and Erik Olesund.

Resources mentioned in this podcast: the American “Farm Bill“; “Quinoa’s Global Success Creates Quandary at Home,” from the New York Times (2011); “High-yield agriculture slows pace of global warming, say Stanford researchers,” from Stanford News (2010); Carnegie Mellon study comparing carbon emission reductions of eating local versus reducing meat consumption (2008); American Meat documentary.

Music featured by James Pants, Candlegravity, Dexter Britain, Sycamore Drive, Podington Bear, and Gable.


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S3E6: Is the Sustainability Movement an Activist Movement?

The Green Grid Radio team thought about how American culture has changed since the 1960s in the most recent episode of Season 3. In looking at the sustainability movements on campus, we draw out (or try to draw out) some of the societal forces that have changed the way students tackle environmental problems. Stanford Sociology Professor Doug McAdam joined us to weigh in on social movements, noting “divesting from politics is the wrong impulse.”

fossilfreeThe Stanford Fossil-Free team making a stand against Keystone XL (Image attributed to Fossil Free Stanford , 2013).

Guests on this week’s show include Stanford students Nicholas Reale and Jorge Masero of the Civil & Environmental Engineering department; Gregory Hall and Ian Girard of the Stanford Solar Car project; and Naomi Cornman, Co-President of the Green Living Council; Stanford Sociology Professor and Director Emeritus of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Doug McAdam;  Julie Muir, Community Relations Manager at Peninsula Sanitary Service, Inc; Dana Gunders, Project Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council; and Jacob Woodruff, Senior Scientist at SunPower Corp.

Hosted by Adam Pearson, Erik Olesund, Diane Wu, Mallory Smith, Sophia Vo.

Audio featured in this episode: ROTC sit-in at Old Union*, Stephen Schneider Memorial Lecture 2013, John F Kennedy Inaugural Address, data clip (and other sound effects from freesound.org), excerpts from a Claremont Colleges 3/4/13 Divestment event, Blue Ducks, Podington Bear, Broke For Free, Innocent Bandits, King Felix, Johnny Ripper, Aoiroooasamusi, and Dustin Wong.

*Stanford University, Office of Vice President and General Counsel, Records (SC0178). Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.


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S2E8: Reason for Hope: Fitting Biodiversity Conservation into Solar Development Plans

This past Thursday on Green Grid Radio, we turned to a subject few consider when thinking about the viability of different types of renewable energy: impacts on birds and other wildlife. Garry George, Renewable Energy Project Director at Audubon California, joined us to discuss how solar and wind energy development projects impact biodiversity, as well as how Audubon works with renewable energy developers to reduce this impact as much as possible. We learned about some exciting partnerships and developments, such as the Working Lands Program, the Department of Energy and Interior’s final plan for solar development in the west, and ways to move forward in the transition to renewable energy without threatening endangered wildlife. We were also joined by panelist Chase Mendenhall, a Ph.D candidate in Stanford’s Center for Conservation Biology. Chase shared his perspective on the efforts to conserve wildlife in human-dominated areas, his environmental philosophy, and some interesting implications of his research in countryside biogeography. If you missed it live, please enjoy this week’s episode below!

S2E8: Reason for Hope: Fitting Biodiversity Conservation into Solar Development Plans

Garry George, Audubon. Photo credit: AT&T

Listen here:


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S2E2: Climate Change in the U.S. After Superstorm Sandy, Part II

S2E2: Climate Change in the U.S. After Superstorm Sandy, Part II

Dr. Jim Salinger, New Zealand climate scientist, IPCC author, and recent visiting professor at Stanford talks about how a changing climate contributes to both increased severity and frequency of extreme weather events such as Superstorm Sandy. Matt Chalmers, a JD student at UC Davis joins us live over the phone to discuss how the inertia of U.S. government effectively hinders the timely development of policies for climate change mitigation, and whether technological progress and economic growth can solve the problem they took part in creating.

As always, we also highlight the latest energy related news and present insightful comments and questions from our team members here at Green Grid Radio. Hosted by Sophia Vo, Adam Pearson, Erik Olesund, Kara Fong, Darren Handoko and Mallory Smith.

Listen here:


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S2E1: Taking on Climate Change through Education and Grassroots Action

Student guests Sara Orton, Alan Propp, and Sophie Harrison visit our studio to talk about grassroots and bottom-up strategies to spur behavioral change and further education on climate change.

Green Grid Radio S2E1

Orton and Propp describe how they have worked on developing a climate change education curriculum in local high schools. Harrison, who leads the Fossil Free Stanford movement, talks about the campaign to encourage the Board of Trustees to divest from fossil fuel investments. Our discussion also touches upon how climate change needs to be communicated in a less “doomsday”-like context, and instead framed in a way that highlights the positive results of a sustainable lifestyle (rather than a life of deprivation).  As always the episode features the most recent news on energy and environmental issues.

This first episode of season two of Green Grid Radio was hosted by Adam Pearson, Sophia Vo, Kara Fong and Erik Olesund.

Listen here:


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S1E10: Wildlife Challenges and Opportunities with Wind Energy

Justin Allegro, who manages National Wildlife Federation’s Renewable Energy and Wildlife Program, is the final featured guest of Green Grid Radio’s first season. Before the season came to an end, we talked about the tension between the ‘green’ conservation movement and the ‘green’ energy interests, species of conservation concern at wind sites, and what recent US Fish & Wildlife Service measures have been implemented to encourage stakeholders to work together. Your hosts: Sophia Vo, Kara Fong, Adam Pearson and Erik Olesund discussed the interview and wrapped season 1 up with a discussion on subsidies. “We need to stop subsidizing global warming” says Erik.

Green Grid Radio will be back on Thursday January 17 at 6-7PM PST at KZSU Stanford 90.1FM or kzsulive.stanford.edu. Please take note, the show is now airing on Thursdays between 6-7PM. As always, each new episode will be available in our free podcast “Green Grid Radio” that can be found in the iTunes store.

Thanks for tuning into Green Grid Radio this season. Happy holidays!

Listen here:


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S1E9: Season Recap Roundtable with Stanford Panelists

Rob Best, Andrew Ponec and Tim Burke in the studio.

Rob Best, Andrew Ponec and Tim Burke in the studio.

Tim Burke, Andrew Ponec, and Rob Best are guests. For our season finale we invited back three of our favorite panelists from the Stanford community, Tim Burke (Engineers for a Sustainable World), Andrew Ponec (Stanford Grid Alternatives), and Rob Best (Solar Decathlon) for a roundtable discussion on some of the topics we’ve covered throughout the fall. We played segments from previous shows and talked about everything from the recent UNFCCC Conference of Parties 18 in Doha last week to solar technology markets to the integration of variable renewable resources onto the electricity grid.

The show was presented by Adam Pearson and Erik Olesund.

Listen here:


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Coming up in S1E9: The Big Season Finale (Dec 11th, 2012 at 1-2PM PST)

On Tuesday December 11 we’re rounding of the first season of Green Grid Radio with a big finale! The show will feature highlights from the first season such as climate change discussions with Rt. Honorable Helen Clark and Philip Duffy, the possibilities stemming from green buildings and solar panels and much more. Some of our favorite guests Rob Best, Andrew Ponec, and Tim Burke are coming back to the studio to provide the voice of the Stanford community. Your hosts, Adam Pearson and Erik Olesund, will tie things together and perhaps give you a sneak peak of what is to come in Season 2. So tune in on Tuesday from 1-2 PM at 90.1FM or kzsulive.stanford.edu for a show filled with goodies!

Season 1 Finale Flyer


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S1E6: Climate Change and Development – What Are the (Energy) Solutions?

Helen Clark, United Nations Development Programme Administrator, was our guest this week. Green Grid Radio had the opportunity for an exclusive interview with the Right Honorable Clark, a former three-term Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999 – 2008 and the current UNDP Adminstrator

Ms. Clark joined us to speak about Climate Change with regards to development.  We discussed the challenges of tackling long-term issues within short-term political cycles, multi-sectorial approaches to addressing climate change, and mechanisms for low carbon development in developing nations, among other topics.

We were also joined by Matt Chalmers. He is a recent Stanford graduate and current J.D. student at U.C. Davis who firmly believes that many of the great challenges of our time must be met with interdisciplinary solutions. In his time at Stanford, Matt wedded a strong background in the physical sciences to the study of the complex social, financial, and policy obstacles to progress on climate change posed by the political and economic structure of our world today.

Listen here:


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Coming up in S1E6: Right Honorable Helen Clark (Nov 20th, 1-2PM PST)

Our next episode of Green Grid Radio will feature a very special guest: Right Honorable Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and current United Nations Development Programme Administrator. Clark speaks about ways for the developing world to make advances in societal development while simultaneously keeping fossil fuel use down, why there are no current international climate agreements, and what kind of climate impacts we will start seeing over the next few years.

This exclusive interview will air on Tuesday November 20, 1-2PM PST at 90.1FM or at kzsulive.stanford.edu. As always the episode will feature a summary of the latest Energy in the News as well as some comments from a panel of Stanford students. The episode will be made available here at greengridradio.org or via our iTunes podcast shortly after the airing.