
Earth911.com's Sustainability In Your Ear
Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe interviews activists, authors, entrepreneurs and changemakers working to accelerate the transition to a sustainable, post-carbon society. You have more power to improve the world than you know! Listen in to get started saving the planet!
Latest episodes

Nov 10, 2021 • 27min
Earth911 Podcast: Obaggo's Plastic #2 and #4 Recycling Appliance
Earth911 welcomes David New, founder of Obaggo, a counter-top appliance that turns a variety of plastic films into recyclable pucks that do not jam recycling center equipment. Recycling in the United States is unnecessarily difficult. Plastic, in particular, is hard to sort because of the myriad forms its takes – it is often unlabeled, which means one cannot identify what kinds of plastic needs to be recycled – and finding drop-off locations that accept the material you have can be a matter of luck. If your city doesn’t accept, for instance, plastic film, you’ll few or no options. But that may be changing. Obaggo can compress plastic bags and film, including #2 and #4 plastic shopping bags, Amazon’s recyclable plastic bags, food wrapping and cereal bags that are in boxes of your favorite breakfast.The Obaggo appliance is currently available through Indiegogo for $229 — please note that backing a company on Indiegogo does not always mean you will receive the product. Obaggo offers a potentially groundbreaking change in the recyclability of plastic film. You can learn about Obaggo at https://www.obaggo.com/.

Nov 8, 2021 • 23min
Earth911 Podcast: USAFacts Shares U.S. Climate Data Insights
Most of us still struggle to get our heads around the science of climate change, but the impacts are clearly felt almost every day somewhere in the United States. In June, 2021, USAFacts reports, 97 million people in the United States experienced hotter than average temperatures, including record-shattering heat in the West. In August, the data shows 84.8 million Americans — at third of the country - were still suffering from higher than average temperatures. Understanding how persistent but distributed the impact of the climate crisis is helps us internalize the need to make changes in our life. Our guest, Tanveer Ali, is a data visualization analyst at USAFacts. The Bellevue, Wash-based non-profit, founded by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, recently introduced a convenient way to keep tabs on the consequences of the climate crisis, the Climate in the U.S. experience. It provides regularly updated visualizations of a variety of U.S. climate statistics and useful insights into how life is changing for our neighbors. See the dashboard at https://usafacts.org/issues/climate.

Nov 5, 2021 • 30min
Earth911 Podcast: Newday Impact's Doug Heske on Investing to Lower GHG Emissions
Earth911 talks about the challenge of making ethical and environmentally responsible investment decisions with Newday Impact CEO Doug Heske. Newday Impact is a financial services company that creates and manages a variety of socially and environmentally themed portfolios, which make it easy to invest to support your values. We dig into choosing stocks based on the greenhouse gas emissions produced by agriculture and agribusiness, with a quick look at the progress at Whole Foods and Amazon.The news here is not good – industry continues to churn out more CO2 each year rather than less and Newday’s opinion of the companies we’ll discuss today reflects that lack of progress. We focus on Simply Good Foods (SMPL), Xylem (XYL), Darling Ingredients (DAR), Hain Celestial Group (HAIN), Bunge (BG), Novozymes (an OTC-traded Danish company, NVZMY) and the biggest of the big, Amazon (AMZN). Download the Newday Impact app to explore the portfolios and invest.This conversation, recorded on October 29, 2021, does not represent an endorsement of any company or stock. We recommend you do extensive research before making any investment.

Nov 3, 2021 • 27min
Earth911 Podcast: Chris Orestis On Retiring During the Climate Crisis
Our guest, Chris Orestis, is the president of Retirement Genius and a nationally recognized expert on retirements issues. Every generation will feel the impact of climate change, and at a time when demographics are already working against the rising tide of seniors they need to factor in new risks during their retirement. While Millennials, Gen Z and children face long-term impacts on their health, economic opportunities and lifestyles, retiring Baby Boomers must also reckon with the consequences of extreme heat, the potential for disruption of their lives by wildfire, food shortages and the economic impact of climate change on their retirement nest egg. How should older people be rethinking their assumptions about retirement? What changes to existing plans should Boomers be making? We’ve got the guy with the answers.

Nov 1, 2021 • 31min
Earth911 Podcast: A COP26 Progress Report from the Foundation for Climate Restoration
As the world prepares for the United Nations’ COP26 climate change conference, we talk with Rick Wayman, the new CEO of the Foundation for Climate Restoration (F4CR). They are working to return atmospheric CO2 levels to pre-Industrial Era levels by 2050. Members of the F4CR team have been on the show many times to discuss carbon capture and sequestration, an approach to permanently removing excess atmospheric CO2 that stores carbon in the ground or uses it to make new products and materials, from vodka to concrete. Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe recently moderated a session about mining the sky for the F4CR’s annual Second Annual Climate Restoration Forum.World leaders are meeting this week in Glasgow, Scotland, to set emissions goals to prevent catastrophic climate change. Rick explains that a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030 is critical to preventing warming in excess of 1.5C, at which climate change could reach a devastating tipping point. Carbon capture and sequestration technology is evolving quickly and may represent an important tool in humanity's response to rising CO2 levels. But first we need to stop the rising emissions from rich and poor countries in an equitable way. That’s where COP26 comes into play, it is the world’s last chance to agree on the path to an equitable transition to renewable energy. To learn more about F4CR, visit https://foundationforclimaterestoration.org/.

Oct 27, 2021 • 27min
Earth911 Podcast: LastObject's Isabel Aagaard on the Reusable LastPad
LastObject cofounder Isabel Aagaard joins us to talk about the company’s latest product, the LastPad, a reusable menstrual pad made to be washed and reused up to 240 times. Single-use menstrual pads are a huge waste issue, representing a large share of ocean waste and producing billions of loose plastic wrappers, coated paper and the pads themselves every year. The LastPad comes in three sizes, including panty liners and overnight pads and the inner layer is made from bamboo, while the outer is polyester. LastObject launched the LastPad through Kickstarter and more than 46,000 people backed the project. Isabel shares how LastObject uses crowdfunding campaigns to co-design products with the consumers who will use them.

Oct 25, 2021 • 21min
Earth911 Podcast: Forust Cofounder Ronald Rael on 3D-Printed Wood
Ronald Rael, cofounder of 3D-printed wood maker Forust and chair of the Architecture department at the University of California Berkeley College of Environmental Design joins Mitch Ratcliffe. Ronald co-invented a method for printing wood with realistic grain using sawdust and lignin, the natural adhesive in wood.Forust's 3D-printing system can mimic the natural grains and colors of different species, including rare rosewood, mahogany and ebony that are the cause of widespread deforestation. Because it is printed, Forust wood can be shaped for use in furniture or and printed to service as a structural support in building — it opens a whole spectrum of novel applications of wood in construction. Learn about the potential uses of Forust's “digitally rematerialized wood.”

Oct 22, 2021 • 25min
Earth911 Podcast: Getting Indigenous Kids Outside with Activist Jody Potts
Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe talks with Jody Potts, an Alaskan native Han Gwich’in environmental and indigenous rights advocate who recently was named to the Explore Fund Council at outdoor gear maker The North Face. That council guides the company’s grant-giving. She is working in particular to launch a program, Native Youth Outdoors, that encourages indigenous kids to get outside and involved with nature. With Indigenous People’s Day this month, and so much controversy swirling around protections of the Alaskan wilderness, we are excited to talk with Jody about the challenges and opportunities for positive change she sees these days.

Oct 20, 2021 • 24min
Earth911 Podcast: Land to Market's Lisa Mabe on Regenerative Food Labeling
Lisa Mabe explains the Land To Market Verified consumer label, a project of the Savory Institute that intends to build 100 global hubs where the organization’s regenerative Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) process can be applied to local farm practices. She explains how the label will provide consumers a connection to farmers and ranchers who practice regenerative techniques. With the information collected for the EOV certification, consumers can use their spending to reinforce the values of regeneration in our food, leather and clothing choices. It’s just one of many initiatives we need to continue the reinvention of human life for a sustainable future.The path to restoring the environment, from reforestation to removing the excess C02 in the atmosphere, runs straight through our dinner tables. Farm and pasturelands, especially the topsoil farmers rely on to grow our food, are severely degraded — the Yale School of the Environment reported in February that one-third of the U.S. corn belt has lost all its topsoil. Regenerative farming is an emerging practice that can help to restore carbon and complex ecosystems in soil. So, how can we look for foods grown using regenerative techniques and cut down our use of industrially farmed, soil-damaging products when shopping? Listen in to learn how Land to Market helps.

Oct 18, 2021 • 36min
Earth911 Podcast: Newday Impact's Doug Heske on responsible energy investing
Environmentally responsible investing requires we apply carbon sense thinking, says our guest, Doug Heske, CEO of Newday Impact Investing. Doug and Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe launch a series of conversations about making informed decisions about stocks and funds, beginning with a comparison of the emerging solar and declining fossil fuels industry. In this episode, we'll look at Sunpower, First Solar, Canadian Solar, Sunnova and Tesla, all stocks Doug suggests are core energy holdings for the future, as well as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell, which he advises avoiding or selling if your goal is to protect the environment. Watch for new responsible investing programs every two weeks.We also discuss the nascent investments by oil companies in renewable energy and carbon capture, which have not become serious enough to justify buying those stocks. During the conversation, Doug gave himself some homework and he answered after the show: One of the solar companies discussed, integrated solar provider Canadian Solar, has significant Chinese ties that may increase risk. Earth911 urges you to carefully consider any investment before making a decision to buy or sell any assets.