Maya K. van Rossum, the Delaware River Keeper and author of the book: The Green Amendment, securing our rights to a healthy environment talks with Rob. It is always an uphill battle to stop polluting. People believe they may do whatever they like on property they own without regard for how their actions harm neighbors and people downstream. When fracking threatened to destroy land and drinking water, Maya van Rossum and other petitioners, successfully made the case that people have rights to clean water and clean habitation in their homes and neighborhoods. They won a watershed legal victory that protected Pennsylvania communities from ruthless frackers. They also launched the Green Amendment movement to affirm as a constitutional right a clean and healthy environment. Maya talks about battles won for clean water and the battles waged today.

Moir’s Environmental Dialogues

The Green Amendment, constitutional right to healthy environment

St. Johns (FL) Riverkeeper, Lisa Rinaman talks about cleaning the waters of a river once labeled #6 on a list of America’s Ten Most Endangered Rivers. The new State of the Lower St. Johns River Basin Report looks at water quality, fisheries, aquatic life and contaminants. With the link between excess lawn fertilizing and harmful algal blooms established, FL Friendly landscaping ordinances have been implemented. Nutrient levels have declined. Worsening trends are salinity rising, nonnative species increasing, and much habitat loss. Success for Jacksonville’s Manatee Protection Plan. Improved conditions for manatee, bald eagles, and wood stork. Finfish stocks are sustainable. More work to be done on algal blooms, fecal coliform levels, and to improve grass beds. The St. Johns River is no longer one of America’s endangered rivers and is improving as an amenity for Florida.

Cleaning the waters of Floridas St. Johns River

Tom Sanders with the Worldly Adventures of Archibold Clutterbuck and Friends talks with Rob about a new homeschooling education program featuring endangered wildlife teetering on the brink of either survival or extinction. To learn more about tigers of the sea known as bluefin tuna, educators and students are invited to visit the Ocean River Institutes page webpage. Tom presents an innovative and engaging education program. Rob describes why save the infamous orangutan, rhinos and pangolin, as well as the giant ibis of Cambodia. The saiga antelope has a nose that reminds one of Gonzo the Muppet, suffered a disease outbreak in 2015 and may now have the distinction of being the most endangered mammal. Just as rare, the saola has straight horns that remind locals of “spinning wheel posts” was only discovered by scientists in 1992. Tune in for life histories of seven endangered species that may soon be gone.

Of bluefin tuna saiga saola giant ibis orangutan rhino and pangolin

Moir's Environmental Dialogues - August 8th, 2019

This week ORI Intern Morgan Berman and Rob focus on the element that makes up all life: carbon. Excessive carbon in the atmosphere is the driver of climate change. First, we talk with Ed Smith, Head of Carbon at Indigo Ag, a budding agricultural technology company. Ed speaks about Indigo’s newly-announced Terraton Initiative, which is garnering global attention and local business in our native city of Boston. Indigo Carbon is a two-pronged program, using seed microbiology and artificial intelligence, to reduce atmospheric carbon. Ed explains how anyone and everyone can educate themselves on carbon capture and carbon markets. Next, David Wagner, environmentalist and former energy consultant, explains the workings of utilities and the electric grid. He provides helpful tips for homeowners about peak usage. Efficiency is the name of the game in the energy sector. Energy conservation is often more than half of the battle. The importance of efficiency and new approaches to carbon management becomes clear when the two talk about carbon emissions. Capturing carbon and reducing emissions are the ways to a more sustainable future.

Climate Change and Carbon: Talking Carbon Capture with Ed Smith of Indigo Ag and Efficiency with Energy Consultant David Wagner

Frances Moore Lappe: It's Not Too Late - Hope in the Face of Climate Change

This week on Moir's Environmental Dialogues Morgan and Jessie speak with two environmentalists from different perspectives. First, they speak with Carla Giannattasio who works for Hilton International on their Corporate Responsibility Team. Carla speaks about her experience working with smaller nonprofits in comparison to the larger corporate atmosphere of which she is currently a part and explains what she has learned so far from her post. Next, Jessie and Morgan Speak with Melissa Shackleton Dann who has held several varied positions in the environmental realm. Melissa speaks about strategy and how she has worked to bring attention to the "holes" of environmental coverage.

Working with the Environment, Small Fish to Big Fish

On this week’s program, Jessie and Morgan host two guests to discuss issues of food access from different perspectives. Erica Satin Hernandez, Coordinator at Shape-Up Somerville, speaks with interns Morgan and Jessie this week on the radio show about many of the wonderful initiatives in the works to offer healthy options to residents of Somerville. Erica discusses her trajectory through the food security world, and talks about the intersectional nature of tackling community health initiatives. This weekend is the first weekend of Shape-Up’s Mobile Market, a traveling farmers market put on by the city aimed at offering fresh produce in an accessible way. The Mobile Market, in addition to being accessible in its location (which moves 4x a week) is also fully available to all people in the city receiving nutritional assistance. For more information on Shape-Up’s programs, visit their site: https://www.somervillema.gov/departments/health-and-human-services/shape-somerville. Charlotte Mondale is a senior at Tufts who just finished a 5 month long semester examining the dynamics of food security and food systems in four different continents. Charlotte sat down with Morgan and Jessie to discuss the relationship between the environment and climate change, food justice, the role of colonization, agriculture policy, and global governance structures on food security. We discussed the erasure native foods and how globalization affects availability of certain foods. Do you believe that GMOs are harmful or beneficial? Tune in to hear more about the debate between climate change, food and economic security, and GMOs.

Food: security, sovereignty and justice

Encore: Moir's Environmental Dialogues - May 30th, 2019

Moir's Environmental Dialogues - June 27th, 2019

Moir's Environmental Dialogues - June 6th, 2019

Moir's Environmental Dialogues - May 30th, 2019

Moir's Environmental Dialogues - May 23rd, 2019

Sea scallops have black eyes and bay scallops are blue-eyed. Skylar Bayer describes the survival strategies of bay and sea scallops in Maine. Bryce Stewart tells of the life of king and queen scallops in Scotland. Young king scallops wear byssus threads to hold onto to high-rise hardscapes. Adolescent scallops loose the threads to become remarkably active, out maneuvering crabs at the click of a claw. Adult scallops settle in to a low-profile couch-potato lifestyle on ocean floors where the sediments are not too fine or pebbles too big. Skylar reveals the truths behind the story of two buckets of scallop gonads lost during a hand-off outside a convenience store on Mount Desert. Flyers of missing scallop parts went up and out to media. Journalists from the Colbert Report traveled to the far-flung lobster state and were shocked by what they imaged – an obsessed woman with diabolical intentions to take over the world by doing science from her laboratory.

Encore: Scallops 4: Sea, Bay, King and Queen Scallops

Moir's Environmental Dialogues - April 11th, 2019

With the knowledge of Carson and the courage of Achilles, individuals are steadfastly going the distance to defend wildlife and ecosystems from assaults of environmental degradations and destructions. Join environmental studies scientist Dr. Rob Moir for lively dialogue and revealing narrative inquiry into how individuals are overcoming the obstacles turning forlorn hope into effective actions for oceans, rivers, watersheds, wildlife and ecosystems. Discover how listening to individuals, thinking locally, and acting in concert with other, you can act to save ecosystems. Got environmental stewardship? Become an Eco-steward. Act to bring about a greener and blue Planet Earth. Moir’s Environmental Dialogues is broadcast live every Thursday at 12 Noon Pacific Time on The VoiceAmerica Variety Channel.

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Moir’s Environmental Dialogues

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