Cool Solutions: Stories of climate action from the bottom up

This year's Farm Bill will determine whether US agriculture cuts its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. Republicans want to divert $20 billion away from agricultural climate solutions. Farmers who've adopted these practices say they increase soil carbon and climate resilience.

We hear stories from farmers about compost, cover crops, prescribed grazing, and more. Sustainable agriculture advocates Renata Brillinger of the California Climate and Agriculture Network and Erik Kamrath from the Union of Concerned Scientists advise us what to tell our Congresspeople. (It's simple). 

The David who fought Goliath had two sisters. This is the modern day story about two women taking on a giant. They started alone, standing up against a huge multinational petrochemical corporation, and won. Diane Wilson, a fisherwoman from Seadrift Texas, won the largest ever penalty in a citizen clean water lawsuit, defending her bay from plastic pollution. Sharon Lavigne of St James Parish, Louisiana, stopped the same company, Formosa Plastics, from building the largest petrochemical plant in the world in her small Black community.  

This is an updated story first broadcast in 2021 

When we fix what we have, we reduce emissions, and strengthen communities.  80% of the carbon pollution from our laptops, cell phones, and appliances is embodied carbon, emitted before we even open the box.  A return to repair means changing our culture and challenging corporate monopoly. We have stories about a repair cafe in Chicago and a coalition of Minnesota techies and farmers who overcame corporate lobbies to win passage of the nation's strongest Right to Repair law.  

Smartphone repairability scores

Right to Repair State bills

Find or Start a Repair Cafe

80% of the buildings that will be here in 2050 are already here, producing 30% of our greenhouse gas emissions. Uber sustainable new construction is cool, but the big carbon reductions will come from electrifying old buildings.

Chicago plans to retrofit 80,000 homes in the next 7 years. A research collaboration between the city, community organizations, a utility, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is working out a plan that will minimize emissions, maximize justice and lower peoples' energy bills.

The results convinced me that, at least in Chicago, it's far better to eliminate fossil fuel heating in lots of homes than to spend the same amount of money completely decarbonizing a lesser number. We need to do it all eventually, but this is the way to make big change fast.

A pilot study replacing gas stoves with induction stoves in a public housing building in the South Bronx did the expected and decreased indoor air pollution. Two unexpected discoveries were the popularity of the induction stoves and that the building's old wiring could only deliver enough juice to replace stoves in a fraction of the apartments. Replacing all the gas stoves with induction stoves and the building's broken boiler with heat pumps will require an expensive electrical upgrade. To avoid those costs in the future, NYCHA used its  purchasing power to get manufacturers to build heat pumps which use less electricity, plug into 110 outlets and install easily in their buildings' windows.

Contributors: 

Story: Annie Carforo, Michelle Feliciano, Vlada Keniff, Mary Rivera, Angela Morales

Music: 

Scott Holmes, Kevin McLeod, Maarten Schellekins, Jason Shaw, and Jahzzar

"When I read in 2020 that Colorado ran a pilot program to give away just 13 e-bikes, I scoffed. What difference could that possibly make? Now I have to eat my bike helmet." - Wendy Ring, Cool Solutions Producer and Host. 

Turns out that mini-pilot laid the foundation for Denver's wildly successful e-bike program by proving that e-bikes cut car trips and emissions and that low income folks want to ride them. Denver's program became the model for a statewide program.  That "e" also stands for equity, as removing economic barriers to bikes builds pressure to address unsafe streets in low income neighborhoods.

 Guests: Christian Willis, Colorado Energy Office Rachel Hultin, Bicycle Colorado Frieda Mitchell & Darnell Robinson, Can Do CO participants Mike Salisbury Denver Office of Climate Action Sustainability and Resilience Ash Lovell, People for Bikes

With growing conflicts over solar development on farm land, dual use may provide middle ground and enough income to help small farmers keep farming. That's how Byron Kominek found himself putting a solar garden on one of his hay fields and hosting teams of agrivoltaic researchers.

Colorado farmers Byron Kominek and Liza McConnell and Jordan Macknick, head of agrivoltaic research at the National Renewable Energy Lab,  find some crops grow better and use less water with solar shade than in direct sun. 

Meet a retiree in rural OR and a group of millennials in WA who are spreading community owned solar projects across their states.  

A small group of garment workers, tired of factory wage theft, organized and won passage of a law that makes fashion brands responsible for unpaid wages. Hourly pay went from a shameful $5 an hour to a minimum of $15 an hour. Now a similar bill is going to Congress.

A Michigan environmental justice coalition is putting the "public" back in their state's Public Service Commission; closing coal plants, stopping new gas plants, and elevating the welfare of low income communities.

For decades university departments, liberally lubricated with fossil fuel dollars, have been turning out research that adds a scholarly veneer to the industry's policy agenda. First that was opposing the regulation of oil and gas; now it's promoting carbon capture so they can keep selling their product. Students and faculty are shining a light on fossil fuel infiltration of academia and organizing to ban fossil fuel dollars from climate and energy research.

We talk with undergrads and PhD students at Stanford and George Washington University about their research showing how fossil fueled research is skewing climate policy and how they are organizing to stop it. 

Solar coops bridge the partisan divide, raising panels on rooftops and building a broad movement to transform our energy system. Solar United Neighbors provides the technical know how, community groups do the organizing, and together they're removing the practical and political barriers to a clean energy transition. It's a movement which brings together conservatives and progressives and they're winning battles against powerful utilities.  

With federal climate policy blocked by Congress and the Supreme Court, we look at opportunities to advance climate action at state and local levels. Caroline Spears explains how the Climate Cabinet uses big data to find pivotal elections and help pro climate candidates win. Nathaniel Stinnett of the Environmental Voter Project explains why state and local elections are a great opportunity for the climate movement to strengthen its political muscle. And we meet Lauren Kuby, who the Climate Cabinet is supporting in her race for the AZ Corporation Commission, which regulates the state's utility monopolies. 

What did it take to get the wealthiest university in the world to break ties with the fossil fuel industry?   

9 years and the combined force of students, faculty, and alumni engaged in everything from scholarly debate, to civil disobedience, to legal action.  In the end, Harvard's divestment was most likely due to fear of having its own reputation besmirched by association with an already stigmatized fossil fuel industry.  Students, faculty, and alumni tell their stories. 

We explore other barriers to rural EV adoption with Matt Fitzgibbon of the Tri States Electrical Cooperative. 

Activists accelerate states' switch to clean big rigs.  A story about the power of coming together and speaking out for climate and justice.

Bill McKibben launches new climate group for seniors. Doctors devoting their retirement years to climate action talk about what motivates them and how they found their place in the movement. Their activities range from registering low income patients to vote to getting arrested over pipelines. Bill McKibben introduces Third Act, a new climate organization for seniors, and explains why this demographic is key to climate action.  

We talk with former contract  farmers for Tyson, Perdue, and Pilgrim's Pride;   the founder of a farmers' cooperative that outperforms Big Meat by a mile, and an animal welfare organization turning chicken houses into grow houses.  

Two January diet challenges are remarkably effective at enticing people to try (and keep eating) more plant based meals.    

 A 31 day vegan pledge gives our co-hosts a push to try new things.