KDHX Earthworms

Here at the confluence of the fourth largest watershed on Earth, most St. Louisans don't connect with our big rivers - or our community tributaries - beyond an occasional public event. How to  help us relate to the value, needs and health of our waters? Convening presenters from local, DC and global advocacy groups, this is the Global Freshwaters Summit's intent.

Organizer Laura Madden grew up in St. Louis on Coldwater Creek, now notoriously contaminated by radioactive waste. From a visit here with DC colleague and friend Myra Jackson, these women have rallied colleagues in environmental and social action, coordinating a virtual event hosted by the Missouri Historical Society around their landmark "Mighty Mississippi" exhibit. 

Conference sessions and a film festival take place April 19-23, on Zoom. Registration is free. Overflowing the banks of "normal" Earth Week events, this summit aims to Change In One Generation how we humans relate to freshwater resources - and each other.

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms Engineer, with a shout-out to Andy Coco and Jon Valley, KDHX production staff.
Related Earthworms Conversations:

Related Earthworms Conversations: Mighty Mississippi Exhibit with curator David Lobbig (Dec 2019) 

Living with Rivers: Big Muddy MO (Feb 2019)

Earth Day, April 22, is one of the most widely observed dates on this planet. For enviro-advocates, this celebration has become Earth Month: starts in March, runs to May.

This is way true for the folks of EarthDay-365, celebrating virtually again this year in St. Louis. Executive Director Dr. Jess Watson, and Bob Henkel, Director of Programs. Earthworms host Jean Ponzi knows Jess and Bob as colleagues and friends, so this preview of a month of social action, learning, engagement and fun comes from heart, hands and eco-logic intertwined.

Give a listen, get involved! Happy Earth Month to you!

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer, and to Andy Coco and Jon Valley, the KDHX production team.

Related Earthworms Conversations:
Earth Day: History of a Genius Event with Adam Rome (May 2018)

As dancer and choreographer Dawn Karlovsky read about The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate in Peter Wohlleben's bestseller of that name, SHE felt that communication - and transformed her experience into dance.

Her conversation with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi explores the nature of movement as a primary force mastered (even in stillness) by trees, from whom our species can take a useful leaf!

Karlovsky and Company's performance this spring of Interwoven celebrates the nourishing nurturing interconnected nature of what we now know as the "Wood-Wide Web" in a collaborative performance that includes original music by Tory Starbuck and Kalo Hoyle with stage design/visual art by Dr. Bill Russell.

Audiences can virtually experience Interwoven March 26 - April 11, and learn more about this and other collaborative works at www.karlovskydance.org 

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms friend & engineer, and to KDHX production staff Andy Coco and Jon Valley.

Related Earthworms Conversations:
In the Company of Trees with Andrea Sarubbi Fareshteh (Jan 2019)

Joan Lipkin: Focusing Theater Power on Climate Change (Oct 2017)

Related: Joan Lipkin Climate Plays

NEED PIX from Dawn

Becky Brittain is a passionate sparkler of life, a practiced mover of energies to help ourselves, Earth and others.  Her new book The Art of Sparkling - Share Your Inner Light with the World (Weeping Willow, 2020) embodies Becky's energy, grounded in some hefty experiential cred.

Becky Brittain, Ph.D., R-DMT, is a clinically trained psychotherapist, life coach, registered dance-movement therapist, and energy transmitter. Her doctorate in prenatal and perinatal psychology from the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, M.A. in dance therapy from UCLA, and B.A. in Psychology and Dance have, as she describes in the book, all contributed to Becky's work in evolving fields and to her sparkle explorations. 

Becky Brittain and Earthworms host Jean Ponzi are old friends. When Becky taught somatic psychology at Washington University in St. Louis (for 29 years) she tuned into Earthworms on KDHX, driving home from class. Hear connection sparkling between these two! As Becky Brittain says, it's a dance in light.

THANKS to Earthworms Green-pro engineer Andy Heaslet, with a shout-out always to KDHX production pros Andy Coco and Jon Valley.

Related Earthworms Conversations: 
Dr. Sharon Deem DVM - One Health for People, Animals, Earth (August 2020)

Pen Augustin on Energy Healing (May 2015)

Crystal Moore Stevens: Grow, Create, Inspire (Oct 2016)

Lark Rodman on Ecological Revival (Feb 2015)

Sparkle Plenty - Yippee-oo!

Back in 2009, HUD gave St. Louis their largest-ever grant award to develop a regional sustainability plan. A zillion stakeholder-session hours late, OneSTL took form. But, as with many plans, there was no $$ for implementation - until Person-Power took the helm.

Today, circles of advocates working in six focus areas are implementing SMART targets, making OneSTL both plan and reality. Earthworms is proud to spotlight OneSTL in this conversation with Aaron Young, Sustainability Project Manager, and Gena Jain, Sustainability Planner with our East-West Gateway Council of Governments. 

      

Across our bi-state region, under the banner of OneSTL, good work is underway the areas of Food Access, Water and Green Infrastructure, Materials and Recycling, Energy and Emissions, Green Transportation and Biodiversity. Give a listen!

THANKS to Earthworms engineers, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley and Andy Coco

Earthworms host Jean Ponzi contributed to We Are OneSTL stories for November 2020. 

Earthworms Conversations with St. Louis Leaders: 

Dr. Sharon Deem, DVM: One Health for People, Animals, Earth

VR Botany: Dr. Kyra Krakos Brings Outdoors Waaaaaaay In

Heather Navarro: 50 Years of MO Coalition for the Environment

The mission of Heru Urban Farming, growing on lots in the City of St. Louis, is to bring healthy, sustainable produce to those who need it most. Founder and CEO Tyrean Heru Lewis is a 5th generation farmer with a background in health and physical education, a Master's degree in Management, and a vibrant passion for growing food that will grow health and vitality for the community he feeds.

Heru's passion is a tangible force. Hearing him talk about his work is feeling the joyful focus he pours into working. Inspiring, practical.  Extraordinary. Heru Urban Farming holds Golden Beet Certification from Known & Grown STL, our regional sustainable food brand and certification system. 

Big congrats for the early December announcement that Heru Urban Farming is awarded a $50,000 grant from the University of Missouri-St. Louis Accelerator. Heru is one of five recipients selected from 470 applicants. The award also includes $200,000 in in-kind service from the Accelerator program.

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer, supported by Andy Coco and Jon Valley at KDHX Production

Related Earthworms Conversations: 
Tosha Phonix: Organizing Food Justice, Growing Community (Oct 2019)

Known & Grown: Brand Boosting Capacity for Local Food (June 2019)

Greenwood Cemetery: History, Community, Restoration Work (Jan 2018)

Earthworms On The Farm -  conversation series NEW for 2021! This periodic feature welcomes farmer participants in Known & Grown STL, a regional local-food certification program and brand from the Missouri Coalition for the Environment.      

First up: Crystal Stevens, whose Flourish farm is located near Godfrey Illinois, returns to Earthworms to share her story of family-farming over 100 varieties of fruits, flowers and culinary and medicinal herbs. 

Learn more about Flourish and Known & Grown STL!

Andy Heaslet is Earthworms engineer, supported by Andy Coco and Jon Valley on the KDHX staff. THANKS!

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Known & Grown STL: New Brand Boosts Capacity for Local Food (June 2019)

Tend & Flourish School of Botanicals (Feb 2020)

Grow, Create, Inspire: a Lifestyle Guide from Crystal Stevens (Oct 2016)

Along the trail into a New Year, Terrain Magazine celebrates outdoor activity - and local faves - with 2021 Readers' Choice Awards.

Editor/publisher Brad Kovach shares the what-how-why of this specialized pub's success, promoting hiking, climbing, paddling, cycling and generally, actively enjoying NATURE. 

Big Thanks to Terrain readers for naming KDHX Earthworms host Jean Ponzi your choice as Enviro-Advocate this year! Especially appreciated since Choice honorees are totally proposed by Readers, not suggested by any official list. Yay! Means a lot!

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms Enviro-Active Engineer, and to Andy Coco and Jon Valley of KDHX Production.

Related Earthworms Conversations: 
The New Territory: Traversing the Literary Midwest with Tina Casagrand (May 2017)

Livin' with Rivers: Big Muddy MO with Greg Poleski (Feb 2017)

The Big Book of Nature Activities (June 2016)

Back in Summer 2018, when Earthworms met Tim Kiefer and Beth Grolmes-Kiefer, they talked their dream of urban farming while their subscription compost collection service was taking off through St. Louis' central corridor.

FF toward end of '20 to hear how their Perennial City enterprise is now growing year-round. How Tim and Beth are learning lessons, taking steps forward, back and cyclical - and growing their full-circle urban agriculture dream.

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms friend & audio engineer, and to KDHX production pros Andy Coco and Jon Valley.

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Fungus Farming for Food & Fun: McCully Heritage Project (Feb 2018)

Perennial City: Urban Mavens of Productive Decay (Aug 2018)

The Easy Chicken: Fowl Fun Comes to You (Dec 2017)
Dr. Elaine Ingham: Soil Science Rocks Plant Health (Oct 2017)

When E.O. Wilson, one of the greatest biologists of all time, wrote his memoir Naturalist in 1994, could he have imagined his work illustrated to reach a 21st century visual audience? Today, he does!

KDHX host Jean Ponzi flips the cover with conversation and full-color VIEWS of the new graphic adaptation of Naturalist (November, 2020 - Island Press), in a special KDHX Earthworms Live edition with guest Jim Ottaviani, author of this evolution of a science classic.  

What did it take to translate the work of a lifetime into comic form? Ottaviani's comic writing opus spans almost every scientific discipline! Earthworms digs into his Naturalist collaboration with illustrator C. M. Butzer and the book's legendary subject, with rigor, humor and plenty of ants.

Please strongly consider buying Naturalist, and any other publications, from your local independent bookstore!

THANKS to Earthworms tech team: Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley and Ronnie Wisdom for hatching out this Earthworms Live!

Related Earthworms Conversations: Rule of Five, Landmark Enviro-Case from Supreme Court (June 2020)

One Health for People, Animals, Earth - Dr. Sharon Deem (June 2020)

Nature's Best Hope? Entomologist Doug Tallamy says WE are! (February 2020)

Artists can see beauty in peril - so we can move beyond the grip of a problem like Plastic Pollution. Artist Jenny Kettler shows a way through in her photo exhibition Reclaiming Gaia, and this Earthworms conversation.

She shows plastic bags caught in bushes fluttering like tattered veils, a pregnant women shaded by a single-use bottle, and cyanotype sun-developed patterns made by rain. A hand-made book alternates pages of organza fabric with rice paper, inviting the viewer to explore the delicate "spaces between" perceptions. One print that Kettler buried in Forest Park for a year as a kind of archeological quest, motivated a change from gloss to matte photo paper when she realized the glossy stuff is laminated to plastic!

Jenny Kettler fuses vision, awareness, and urgency as keys to unlock barriers of our thinking, to open our hearts.

View Reclaiming Gaia at Stone Spiral Gallery, 2506 Sutton in Maplewood, next door to Stone Spiral Coffee. Opening reception by reservation to stay COVID-safe, October 24. Closing reception November 22, reservations accepted via Facebook.

Jenny Kettler recently earned her MFA from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. She is an Adjunct Professor of art at Lindenwood University, and teaches at Laumeier Sculpture Park.

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms greenly conscious engineer, with support from Jon Valley and Andy Coco.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Live without Plastic? Jay Sinha says YES! (Jan 2018)
Chalk Art, Street Art, Woman-Powered Art RIOT (May 2018)
Artist Takes on Plastic and Invasive Bush Honeysuckle (May 2018)

Thirteen years ago, acclaimed journalist Alan Weisman both envisioned and researched the idea of a worldwide disease that would decimate our species - and change the course of our impacts on all other Earthly life. What was he thinking?

         
Today, like so many of our kind, Weisman is sequestered in one place, envisioning work he was planning to do - on a new book about hope for all this - while sitting out 2020, in the company of his fellow humans.

Alan Weisman's first guest stop with KDHX Earthworms celebrated his 1998 report on sustainable technology in a remote Brazilian burg: Gaviotas, A Village to Change the World. In 2013 his book Countdown: Our Last Beast Home for Future on Earth and KDHX Earthworms were both honored with Global Media Awards by the Population Media Center. On our goes-around-comes-around planet, this conversation explores our pandemic present,through a spirit of common perseverance.  

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer, with assistance from Jon Valley and Andy Coco.

Related Earthworms Conversations: An Ecologist's Journey to Make Peace with the Anthropocene (Nov 2019)

Storytelling, Deep Listening: Antidotes to Toxic Public Discourse (July 2019)

Renewal - Andres Edwards on our Connection to Nature (May 2019)

What kind of leadership do human societies need right now? What areas of focus are most germaine to addressing climate change?

This Earthworms conversation explores these questions with Jennie C. Stephens, Northeastern University professor and director of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, and author of the new book DIVERSIFYING POWER - Why We Need Antiracist, Feminist Leadership on Climate and Energy (Island Press, September 2020).

Stephens advocates for - and shares examples of national and local leadership in - an Energy Democracy focused enough to supplant the literal power structure of the fossil fuel Polluter Elite. With an appreciation for compassion and empathy as essential leadership qualities, Stephens recognizes the critical value of a new order to democratize the dynamics of society and the energy empowering us all. 

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer, supported by Jon Valley and Andy Coco.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Envision Charlotte (North Carolina) Rolls on Circular Economy (March 2020)

A 1999 vision seeded by two Missouri women sprouted, the next year, as a tax-supported program from our state's Department of Conservation. Flourishing today in a non-profit's fertile soil, Grow Native! stands like a swath of Big Bluestem and Blazing Star as one of the strongest native plant programs around.  

       
Carol Davit, Executive Director of the Missouri Prairie Foundation, tells how a diversity of forces grew success. Like the many "weeds" native to this idea, Grow Native! spread to include plant growers, seed producers, home and professional gardeners, and garden centers, statewide. Now housed within MPF, Grow Native! continues expanding beyond a tax-supported agency's state lines, cultivating ecological landscapes in Kansas, Iowa and Illinois.

Perhaps unique in the U.S., the Grow Native! inclusion of public education, professional development, and lively marketing covers the critical human roles so the plants and habitats they create can speak for themselves. Native plants will grow on you!

Check out Carol Davit's pean to prairies, for TEDx Gateway Arch. 

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley and Andy Coco, Earthworms mighty cohort of audio engineers.

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Nature's Best Hope? Ecologist Doug Tallamy says WE ARE (Feb 2020)

Lawn Alternatives with Neil DeBoll of Prairie Nursery (Aug 2017)

Natives Raising Natives: Inspiration from Butterflies and People (May 2017)

Think of the acres, the running miles under power lines that connect us all to the electricity we want and need. Now see, under these lines, vibrant habitat: running corridors of native plants growing food and reproductive cover for beneficial insects, birds, and more. This kind of land-use transformation is real.

Wires Over Wildlife, a cost-share and expert-advisory program, works with utilities and owners of power line rights-of-ways from our Missouri Department of Conservation. Jason Jensen, Private Lands Conservation Unit Chief, leads a team of MDC experts in negotiating WOW agreements and supporting WOW partners in making these management changes work. 

MDC has negotiated the first WOW agreement with a rural electric cooperative, Grundy Electric Coop. Jensen talks with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi about how this kind of agreement works, why this first coop agreement is significant, and how ecological management can save money, decrease chemical use and mowing, and restore the biodiversity bloom to power line rights-of-way across our state.

Jensen is also on the statewide Feral Hog task force. Hear how MDC is working to tackle this major invasive species issue. 

THANKS to Earthworms engineers: Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley and Andy Coco. Virtual podcasting takes a team!

Related Earthworms Conversations:
Biodiversity for Corporate Lands? (May 2020)

Richard Louv: Our Wild Calling (Oct 2019)

Songbirds injured or orphaned in Missouri have one source of human help: Wild Bird Rehabilitation, a focused, modest, resourceful non-profit nesting in suburban Overland MO.        

Joe Hoffman, Executive Director of Wild Bird, returns to Earthworms with an update from their 38 years of dedicated work, plus a basket of noisy Chimney Swifts, a surrogate nest of Song Sparrows, and some musical chirping with his backpack guitar.

This fall, as a fund-raiser, Wild Bird will make four CDs of songs Joe and fellow bird-champions have composed and recorded, for free online download, for two months. Get their eNews to get details for music access. Fun tunes for kids, families and enviro-messaging. Music from Joe's band The Raptor Project was a favorite Earthworms element over our years live on-air. The KDHX Sound Cloud holds a clutch of these tunes.

In addition to primary healing services for the birds, Wild Bird Rehab offers

• Seasoned advice for well-meaning folk thinking they should help a bird they "find" 
• Volunteer opportunities, including plenty of ongoing need for fielding "help" calls, a job you can contribute remotely!
• Resources from other groups helping wildlife
• Ways to support the work of Wild Bird Rehabilitation

THANKS to Earthworms flock of engineers: Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley

Related Earthworms Conversations: Bluebirds! (June 2019)
Nature's Best Hope? Ecologist Doug Tallamy says WE ARE (Feb 2020)

Eagle Days, Raptor Ways with World Bird Sanctuary (Jan 2020)

Keeping Geese with Kirsten Lie-Nielsen (Nov 2017) 

A Tribute to St. Louis' Legendary Bird Man, Walter Crawford (July 2015)

How do we fix nature after we have disrupted it? Practitioners of the science, art and disciplines of Ecological Restoration are exploring this process, on the job. James Faupel does this work.

At the Litzsinger Road Ecology Center in the suburbs of St. Louis, James tends, tracks and works to repair the vitality of ecosystems including wetlands, woodlands, prairies and Deer Creek. His tools range from computer databases to flame torches. His skills evolved through stints in construction and horticulture, hands-on learning augmented by a degree from St. Louis Community College that parallels how professionals of all kinds have grown Ecology as a significant focus. 

Earthworms host Jean Ponzi and James are colleagues in our region's circle of biodiversity advocates. This conversation follows a path of shared passions for working with nature, for nature. With emphasis on how a career trajectory like James' can benefit many more energetic, inquisitive, Earth-appreciating humans.

Litzsinger Road Ecology Center is not a public facility, rather it hosts school and adult groups for structured ecological learning programs. LREC is managed by the Missouri Botanical Garden.

THANKS to Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet and Jon Valley - Earthworms all-star engineering team.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Nature's Best Hope? Ecologist Doug Tallamy says WE are! (February 2020)
RENEWAL of Our Connection to Nature with Andres Edwards (May 2019)

Massachusettes vs. EPA. Environmental lawyer, professor and author Richard Lazarus calls this case the watershed equivalent of Brown vs. Board of Education for issues of climate change. 

The Rule of Five: Making Climate History at the Supreme Court (Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2020) is the saga of politics, law, strategy, persistence and a dash of fate through which the U.S. Supreme Court defined CO2 as an air pollutant, changing the course of this country's regulatory climate. From the marginal enviro organization lawyer who crafted the petition, to the Bush era's "kneecapping" of climate policy, to the state attorney who defied all criticism to make his case, to the senior Justice whose opinion took a stand - this story is wildly, recently true.

Richard Lazarus has argued cases before the Supreme Court. He's a native of St. Louis, transplanted east. His book is a classic, for the environment and for the law. 

Earthworms host Jean Ponzi will converse again with Richard Lazarus for a Left Bank Book FB Live author event on July 22.

THANKS to Earthworms team of engineers: Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley.

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Climate: A New Story with Charles Eisenstein (Nov 2018)

Photographer Neeta Satam: Documenting Himalayan Climate Change (March 2018)

Peoples' Pocket Guide to Enviro Action with Caitlin Zera (July 2017)

Earthworms remembers a great Great Horned Owl, Charles, whose hoots and habits enlivened conversations on KDHX with Mark H.X. Glenshaw, "the Owl Man of Forest Park." Mark informed readers of his Forest Park Owls blog on July 7, 2020, that he had not seen Charles in any of the habitats he observes since May 14. He has been observing Charles and his mates since 2005. Although Mark says it's possible Charles has relocated to an entirely new habitat, it is likely that he has died. 

                      Charles in the Nest Tree, 2013

Mark is a keen, respectful observer of owls, whoooo he comes to know and love. Earthworms honors this relationship passage!

And as we followed this summer's saga of Bruno, a black bear who walked from Wisconsin down into Missouri, we recalled our conversation  Bears! in July 2018 with Laura Conlee, State Furbearer Biologist for MO Dept of Conservation.

MDC Biologist Laura Conlee at work - Bruno in Missouri

Conlee was featured in news reports of MDC deciding to tranquilize Bruno and remove him to the safety of a bear-suitable habitat, after he got backed into a corner of suburban St. Louis roadways - with over 400 people watching him. Bruno became a media sensation. Conlee reminds us to Be Bear Aware - for our safety and especially for well being of the bears!

Summer breeze past your helmet, streets fly beneath your wheels, intriguing sites interpreted by a leader of St. Louis' cycling scene. 

Most years, this is one of the annual St. Louis Community Rides, hosted on a specific date by Trailnet, our town's cycling advocacy group. Staying safe and healthy for 2020, Trailnet invites you to ride Placemaking STL anytime July 25 to August 24, taking a new app with your refillable bottle, for cycling with a Scavenger Hunt twist, exploring some of our town's cool plazas.

The app has clues to find ride locales. When you get into site proximity, a lovely virtual human will pop up to interpret the site for you. Fun on two wheels!

Dana Gray, community sustainability advocate and "Plaza-Making" tour guide, joins Trailnet's Mobility Coordinator Joe Windler talking these innovations with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi. 

Trailnet is hosting a bunch of these summer 2020 DIY Community Rides, with themes ranging from  LGBTQIA+ History to celebrating Juneteenth to Biking the Vote. Events wheel through September.

THANKS to Earthworms team of engineers, Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet and Jon Valley.

Music for today's show is Measure Once by Matthew Von Doren.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Trailnet's New Vision: St. Louis Gets Around Greener, Healthier, More Lively (Nov 2016)