Episodes

In March of this year, Rolling Stone magazine reported that Bonnie Raitt, Indigo Girls, Kristen Graves, John Butler Trio and Michael Franti are among two dozen musicians who have contributed songs to Buy This Fracking Album, a two-disc compilation LP intended to educate listeners about hydro-fracking, a controversial method of extracting natural gas from the earth's shale. In a statement, Raitt said, One of the most critical environmental issues of our time is banning fracking everywhere because...

The Urban School Food Alliance (Alliance), a coalition of the largest school districts in the United States that includes New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami-Dade, Dallas and Orlando, announced that it will start rolling out the use of compostable round plates at cafeterias this month, saying good-bye to polystyrene trays. The districts in the Alliance serve 2.5 million meals a day, and the six districts project to remove 225 million polystyrene trays from landfills every year. Tune in as...

New farmland-mapping research published this week shows that up to 90 percent of Americans could be fed entirely by food grown or raised within 100 miles of their homes. Professor Elliott Campbell, with the University of California, Merced, School of Engineering, discusses the possibilities in a study entitled “The Large Potential of Local Croplands to Meet Food Demand in the United States.” The research results are the cover story of the newest edition of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environmen...

In her new book, Driving the Future, Margo Oge (Former Director, Office of Transportation and Air Quality, United States Environmental Protection Agency) portrays a future where clean, intelligent vehicles with lighter frames and alternative power trains will produce zero emissions and run at 100+ mpg. With electronic architectures more like that of airplanes, cars will be smarter and safer, will park themselves, and will network with other vehicles on the road to drive themselves. Offering an i...

Opening a new era for cooperation on the world’s most critical water issues, mayors from across Great Lakes and the Middle East will sign a pioneering agreement this month that links their cities through game-changing “Sister Waters” partnerships. The treaty-signing will take place at Water after Borders: Global Stakes, Local Politics, a historic two-day summit at the University of Illinois at Chicago, April 23rd-24th, 2015. Water After Borders will focus on strategies for sharing water across p...

In her new book, Driving the Future, Margo Oge (Former Director, Office of Transportation and Air Quality, United States Environmental Protection Agency) portrays a future where clean, intelligent vehicles with lighter frames and alternative power trains will produce zero emissions and run at 100+ mpg. With electronic architectures more like that of airplanes, cars will be smarter and safer, will park themselves, and will network with other vehicles on the road to drive themselves. Offering an i...

Leaders in the culinary arts, business, public health, and environmental sciences are working together to develop business-friendly solutions to today’s most pressing social and environmental concerns, such as: • Obesity, diabetes, and healthcare costs • The sourcing and production of our food • The challenge of feeding an additional two billion people by 2050, as global resources decline Menus of Change: The Business of Healthy, Sustainable, Delicious Food Choices is a ground-breaking initiativ...

Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot (OVER) crystallizes the ecological and social tragedies of humanity’s ballooning numbers and consumption. It’s time to make millions of people acutely, immediately, and viscerally aware of the dangers and deprivations facing people and the planet. Our guest today is Bill Ryerson, founder and president of Population Media Center; he also serves as Chair and CEO of The Population Institute in Washington, DC. We will discuss ways to proceed into a sustaina...

Opening a new era for cooperation on the world’s most critical water issues, mayors from across Great Lakes and the Middle East will sign a pioneering agreement this month that links their cities through game-changing “Sister Waters” partnerships. The treaty-signing will take place at Water after Borders: Global Stakes, Local Politics, a historic two-day summit at the University of Illinois at Chicago, April 23rd-24th, 2015. Water After Borders will focus on strategies for sharing water across p...

In June 2012, Alameda County in California became the first local government body to pass a safe drug disposal ordinance that would hold pharmaceutical companies responsible for the safe collection and disposal of unused medications from the public. Now San Francisco and numerous additional local governments are on the cusp of doing the same. Today we’ll talk with former Center for Disease Control physician, Dr. Matt Willis; Heidi Sanborn, executive director of the CA Product Stewardship Council...

What do major fashion retailers and designers like HM, Target, Gap and Levi have in common? They are all working with the Natural Resources Defense Council NRDC to create clothing that uses less water and energy to produce, transport, and care for. Through implementation of the NRDC’s Clean By Design program, these corporate partners utilize their tremendous buying power as a lever to reduce the environmental impacts of their suppliers abroad. Clean by Design focuses on improving process efficie...

The African elephant was originally listed as “threatened” by the U.S. Government in 1978. Since then, the species’ population has declined by about 60 percent, primarily due to poaching for the ivory trade. Habitat destruction and unsustainable trophy hunting also contributed to the decline. Today we’re joined by Peter LaFontaine, Campaign Officer, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and Masha Kalinina, International Trade Policy Specialist, Humane Society International, who will discu...

McDonald’s new CEO recently announced that the company is committing to serve chicken raised without antibiotics used in human medicines in all of their U.S. restaurants within two years. As McDonald’s grooms its supply chain to deliver on this promise, this could signal a significant uptick in the supply of affordable, antibiotic-free chicken available to the general public in America. Today we’ll be joined by Sasha Stashwick, a Senior Advocate with the Natural Resource Defense Council’s Energy...

Leaders in the culinary arts, business, public health, and environmental sciences are working together to develop business-friendly solutions to today’s most pressing social and environmental concerns, such as: • Obesity, diabetes, and healthcare costs • The sourcing and production of our food • The challenge of feeding an additional two billion people by 2050, as global resources decline Menus of Change: The Business of Healthy, Sustainable, Delicious Food Choices is a ground-breaking initiativ...

For California, 2013 was the driest calendar year ever recorded across virtually the entire state. On January 17, 2014, Governor Jerry Brown proclaimed the drought to be a State of Emergency, directed state officials to take all necessary actions to assist the hardest hit communities, and called for all Californians to pitch in to reduce water use by 20 percent. While CA agencies and experts have clearly identified those actions best suited to provide relief, some observers wonder whether the lo...

In June 2012, Alameda County in California became the first local government body to pass a safe drug disposal ordinance that would hold pharmaceutical companies responsible for the safe collection and disposal of unused medications from the public. Now San Francisco and numerous additional local governments are on the cusp of doing the same. Today we’ll talk with former Center for Disease Control physician, Dr. Matt Willis; Heidi Sanborn, executive director of the CA Product Stewardship Council...

If you think President Obama’s veto of the bill that would allow the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline has put the issue to rest, think again. Congressional leaders have publicly announced that they are just getting started, and plan to attach Keystone XL language to future bills in an effort to make subsequent vetoes more difficult for the President. Plans for the pipeline have been in the works since 2008, so it is entirely possible that the issue will bleed into the next President’s te...

The African elephant was originally listed as “threatened” by the U.S. Government in 1978. Since then, the species’ population has declined by about 60 percent, primarily due to poaching for the ivory trade. Habitat destruction and unsustainable trophy hunting also contributed to the decline. Today we’re joined by Peter LaFontaine, Campaign Officer, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and Masha Kalinina, International Trade Policy Specialist, Humane Society International, who will discu...

CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST is the true, no holds barred story of 30 years of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) campaigns leading up to the hit show Whale Wars. It’s a feature documentary that reveals the true odyssey of the most wanted environmentalist today, Captain Paul Watson. Filmmaker and longest-serving SSCS crew member Peter Jay Brown documented the mythic deeds of the organization while acting as the cinematographer, first mate, deckhand, quartermaster, Zodiac driver and offi...

Ed Begley, Jr. joins us to discuss an entire day of Earth Day coverage of Hollywood’s efforts to Go Green. Interviews will be covered on www.BiteSize TV.com/live, and will bring together actors, authors, scientists, business innovators and other celebrities who are out front in the green movement, along with the leading experts on a wide range of environmental issues—from climate change and protecting our oceans to green fashion and sustainable farming. Ed will also discuss the Earth Day launch ...

Part autobiography, part treatise, in Creating Climate Wealth, Jigar Shah demonstrates how all of us can participate in the largest wealth creation opportunity of our time. Shah explains that proven, scalable climate solutions, using an infrastructure-as-a-service model, will create the next economy. The book draws lessons from what Shah learned in the creation and success of SunEdison and as CEO of The Carbon War Room. The key message is that climate wealth is at our fingertips – accessible to ...

In her new book, SUPERSTORM: Nine Days Inside Hurricane Sandy (Dutton), investigative journalist and graduate professor of environmental studies Kathryn Miles discusses how mounting inadequacies of our national weather service infrastructure may compound the danger to public safety posed by extreme weather events. The Washington Post said the book is “what you might expect from Stephen King if he wrote nonfiction: a gripping plot with flashes of pure terror. Most astonishing, everything Miles de...

The Wall Street Journal reports that U.S. beekeepers lost 1 in 3 honeybees during the winter of 2012, and this is cause for alarm. Declining bee populations have been making news recently, and this is much more than an endangered species story. Certain crops we take for granted are dependent upon bee pollination to grow. Among these are: apples, almonds, blueberries, watermelon, cherries, peaches, avocados, cucumbers, cranberries, onions, blackberries, grapefruit, oranges, raspberries, cantaloup...

Just a few weeks ago, 17 foundations with assets of about $2 billion agreed to divest their portfolios of coal, oil and gas, and reinvest in the clean energy economy. This adds a major tailwind to the movement that is up and running on 400 college campuses nationwide. Major institutions in San Francisco, including the city itself, have agreed to divest completely. Some of these big names include The Compton Foundation, The Sierra Club Foundation, The San Francisco State University Foundation and...