KDHX Earthworms

Learning Field Botany in Missouri's winter held little appeal for Dr. Kyra Krakos' classes at Maryville U. You just can't do your science easily. This was well before COVID-19 threw a curve into science and all human projects. 

Workaround: Krakos merged her stratae of expertise with her students' digital-native prowess. She "grows" Virtual Reality prairie, glade and riparian outdoor classrooms. She set up systems so advanced students teach beginners the basics (like how pollination works), freeing herself to stay ahead of their voracious learning curves by collecting "skins" on her travels to house new VR explorations of the prairies and glades of Shaw Nature Reserve,  to Ireland's glacial lakes and woodland Berns.

While Virtual rules almost everything for us humans right now, some on-site physical pleasures gnawingly persist. Maryville will soon host Virtual Goat Week, this year's edition of an ongoing Goat Lab study of invasive species removal methods, starring the super-chomping plant control power of Goats.

BIG THANKS to Earthworms engineering crew: Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley.

Music: Mister Sun, performed live at KDHX by Hunter's Permit

Related Earthworms Conversations - Tech & Green Science

Global Mosquito Alert with Dr. Anne Bowser (Aug 2019)

Dr. Elaine Ingham: Soil Science Rocks Plant Health (Oct 2017)

Drawdown: Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (March 2018)

Earth Day launched 50 years ago. 2020 is cause for a global celebration, if not for some bits of lipid-coated protein commanding human awareness, planet-wide.

In St. Louis, our Earth Day-365 leaders are rallying to help us  celebrate, learn, and organize VIRTUALLY, at the safe and healthy Social Distance. Over NINE days of eco-logical events, folks here in the Earthworms region will celebrate, while staying apart and healthy. Green learning, music and much more for all, April 18-26!

Dr. Jess Watson and Bob Henkel of Earth Day-365 talk with Earthworms' Jean Ponzi about upcoming events, and how ALL of us can join this semi-centennial of Life On Earth connection.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Earth Day: history of a genius event with Dr. Adam Rome (May 2018)

Music: One Mint Julep, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran
Thanks to Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, and Jon Valley Earthworms tag-team engineers. 

We humans under stress, amazingly, recharge with a You-Can-Do. Especially when the DO gives us breaks from the stressors.

As our entire species copes at once with the impersonal power of non-living bits of protein to separate us in yet more ways, we are choosing to connect in unprecedented, healing ways. Healing for us, and for our super-stressed (by humans) planet.

ECO CHALLENGE is one of these connectors. Available via your preferred tech device for the entire month of April. Which includes the 50th Annual Earth Day, likely to be festival-free. 

Lacy Cagle, Director of Learning for EcoChallenge.org, presents this motivating, multi-focus You-Can-Do. To WHOLE up our Earth relations and habits, while we are HOLED up, hopefully, in anti-viral best practice. 

Thanks to Andy Coco and Andy Heaslet, engineering for Earthworms in our all-remote Social Distanced locales.

Stay Safe - Be Well!

Related Earthworms Conversations:  

Making Green our Normal with Kathy Kuntz (Oct 2019) 

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

Try Living Plastic Free! EcoChallenge from July 2019

Charlotte, North Carolina, a "city with the best of everything," is making Green a priority! Vision, leadership, and tracking replicable examples have become the norm thanks to efforts of Amy Aussieker and her organization, Envision Charlotte.

From mandating building energy efficiency (which benefits building owners and occupants) to innovating with Circular Economy principles this historic metro area is modeling 21st century sustainability in fiscally and socially beneficial action.

Amy Aussieker talked with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi in advance of her March 10 and 11 presentations to the US Green Building Council-Missouri Gateway Chapter and St. Louis Green Business Challenge. St. Louis is doing some of this too - how can we grow these efforts here?

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms Engineer

Music: Butter II, performed live at KDHX by Ian Ethan Case

Related Earthworms Conversations: 
Green America: Campaigns for Solutions with Beth Porter (Nov 2019) 

Making Green our Normal with Kathy Kuntz (Oct 2019)

Slow Money's Woody Tasch (July 2018)
Anything else about economics? Slow Money

Bugs benefitting humans? Doug Tallamy's research and reason lays out an eco-logical banquet of ways insect life supports our own - and he calls on each one of us to return the favor, by growing native plants. Tallamy's message is passionate and practical - and clear enough for us ALL to take to heart.

Tallamy's first book, Bringing Nature Home (2007, Timber Press), has become the go-to best bet for inspiring lawn-lovers to switch allegiance to a truly lively (meaning largely NATIVE) personal landscape. His new book, Nature's Best Hope (Feb 2020, Timber Press), jumped onto The NY Times Bestseller List in less than a month. Read Washington Post short essay from 2-12-20

His first midwestern speaking gigs, in St. Louis on March 6-7, sold out in days. This Earthworms conversation is a great chance to hear THE BEST explainer of how we are part of Nature, and how our personal landscapes - from suburban yards to city balconies - CAN turn around catastrophic ecological decline, if we work together and Grow Natives NOW. We can grow what Tallamy encouragingly calls Homegrown National Park. Dig it!

Music: Big Piney Blues, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran

THANKS to Sasha Hay and Jon Valley, engineers for Earthworms

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Nancy Lawson, The Humane Gardener (Feb 2019)

Native Plant Garden Tour: See, Grow, Love! (Aug 2017) - look for this tour again in 2020 - and find St. Louis Audubon's Bring Conservation Home program cited by Doug Tallamy in Nature's Best Hope as a program transforming local plant aesthetics. 

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

In the Company of Trees, Forest Bathing with Andrea Sarubbi Fareshteh  Jan 2019)

Promoting growing and ethically gathering herbs, understanding these plants' healing properties, and appreciating Nature. These are the roots of learning and work of Tend & Flourish School of Botanicals.

Longtime organic farmer Crystal Moore Stevens and botanist Alex Queatham have joined friendly forces to teach others how to appreciate and use herbs. Their first (filled!) Herbal Apprenticeship class is working toward completion of study. Their programs at public venues bring their knowledgable love of herbaceous plants to an increasingly receptive audience.

As Crystal eloquently states, this work is Creating Cultivated Ecologies in the minds, hearts and practices of people exploring the potentials of herbs.

Music: Divertimento (k.131) - Kevin MacLeod from WA Mozart

THANKS to Sasha Hay and Jon Valley, our KDHX engineers 

Related Earthworms Conversations: Grow, Create, Inspire with Crystal Moore Stevens (Oct 2016)

Fungus Farming at McCully Heritage Project (Feb 2018)

Kate Estwing Grows, Arranges, Loves . . . Slow Flowers (July 2018)

Labyrinth: Walking Sacred Ground with Robert Fishbone (Sept 2019)

A Cinematic Ode to Seed Savers (Nov 2016)

Lifelong pals Schober and Findlay are funnier than any roomful of humans put together. KDHX fans will recall their weekly escapade avalanche, St. Louis Brain Sandwich, where a Branschweiger Hut, cheeseballs, The Good Fathers, and timeless tunes like "Never Swat a Fly" helped fix the uniqueness bar for this station from our on-the-fly get-go.

When their conjoined brain left (a yawping hole in) the KDHX airwaves in 2015, a new weekly meetup spawned literary ambitions, drenched in laughs. We Never Got To Be Zombies - Fifty-One Years of Fiddling with Fate is the new memoir output of this duo's commitment to making life lighter.

Their curlique'd CV covers time in the military (can you say "Discipline?"), the movies, on the verge of Catholic priesthood, St. Louis Chase Park Plaza's professional wrestling ring and many more looney niches.

How is this environmental podcast content? How Not! Who can't use a hearty ha-ha to lube the works that keep one doing Green Stuff in this era of humankind (sic). THANKS, Jim and Jay!

Earthworms favorite number from the Colin Sphinctor Band:
River Des Peres Song. gives you an earful of Jim Findlay. Jean Ponzi lives in the R des P watershed; this is my neighborhood river. 

Music: Agnes Polka, performed live at KDHX by Chia Band

THANKS to Jon Valley, engineering this Earthworms edition
Related Earthworms Conversations:  

Joe Mohr - Enviro Poet and Cartoonist (Nov 2015)

Community Radio: Purpose, Values, Insider Insights (Aug 2015)

The New Territory: Traversing the Literary Midwest with Tina Casagrande (May 2017)

Cheers to 30 Years of KDHX with Jeff Ritter, First Voice On-Air (July 2017)

In the woods of west St. Louis County, a haven for  birds of prey has been healing injured raptors and forging bird-to-human bonds of caring since 1986. World Bird Sanctuary is one of North America's largest facilities for the conservation of birds.

World Bird takes their talons on the road, generously! For this visit to KDHX, Liberty the Southern Bald Eagle and Jett the Kestral brought along Roger Holloway, WBS Deputy Director, and Field Studies Coordinator Tess Rogers. Liberty didn't have much (that you can hear) to say, yet he contributed splendidly to this Earthworms conversation, focused around our region's annual Eagle Days education events. 

Events in Clarksville, MO, and on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge bring out visitors by the hundreds, despite January cold, but you can enjoy viewing eagles almost anytime during winter months along the Mississippi River. Open water this far south draws Bald Eagles downstream for abundant fishing, giving chill-friendly humans spectacular nature observation time.

Be sure to visit World Bird Sanctuary SOON, and again if it's been awhile. You can catch "Wings Over Water" and other bird shows they provide at events around St. Louis, and beyond. 

Music: Clean Water and Raven Song, performed live at KDHX by The Raptor Project, house band from World Bird Sanctuary.

THANKS to Jon Valley, engineering this Earthworms edition

Related Earthworms Conversations:

St. Louis Legendary Bird Man: Remembering Walter Crawford (Jan 2015)
Wild Bird Rehab: Supporting Songbirds with Joe Hoffman (Sept 2017)

Bluebirds! (June 2019)

Camera Traps: Tools for Conservation (Aug 2016)

It's just before sunset in Forest Park, a nature haven in the City of of St. Louis. A man in a parka, toting backpack full of recording equipment, strides into a wooded copse  he knows well. He listens, waiting, but not for too long. An owl calls.

                       
Mark H.X. Glenshaw has made this kind of trek most days since December 2005. His habits of observation are a personal passion, and a source of inspiration to many who join his Owl Prowls.

The Owl Man of Forest Park shares recent stories of Charles, a male Great Horned Owl he has been observing now for 14 years, and of Charles mates Sarah, Samantha, Olivia and now Danielle. He gives park owls these names, but that's his romantic nod to the Great Horned Owls he loves. His citizen science is meticulous, passionate, persistent and generously shared. You can join him!

Music: Abdiel, performed live at KDHX by Dave Black

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Natives Raising Natives: People and Butterflies (May 2017)

Purple Martins, America's Most Wanted Bird (May 2016)
Bears! with Laura Conlee, MO Dept of Conservation Biologist (2018)

Missouri Coalition for the Environment has celebrated 50 years of environmental advocacy, legal work, education and policy-making in 2019. It's been a gala year of recognition well earned, with plenty more to do.

This conversation with Heather Navarro, MCE Executive Director, caps the year with Heather's perspectives on the work, processes as well as outcomes. Heather's service extended to public life when she was elected Alderwoman of the City of St. Louis 28th Ward in 2017.

Some of what she's proudest of at MCE? The organization's robust capacity-building Internship program and concerted work to integrate racial equity awareness and practices into MCE's everyday action. 

A series of recent KDHX Earthworms conversations salute the work of MCE, with both personal and professional BIG THANKS for opportunities to serve our shared goals. Onward, into a new decade of Green action!

Music: Washboard Suzie, performed live at KDHX by Zyedeco Crawdaddies

Thanks to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer from Sierra Club

Related MCE Earthworms Conversations: 

Citizens Pocket Guide to Enviro-Action with Caitlin Zera 

Tosha Phonix: Organizing Food Justice, Growing Community

Known & Grown STL: New Brand Grows Capacity for Local Food

Superfund Site, Water Action Updates

Water Issues: Meddling, Muddling, Advocacy

Kay Drey: A Lifetime Engaged on Nuclear Issues

Known world-wide for his science-informed nature writing, Richard Louv has defined Vitamin N (what all humans need to imbibe more of) and Nature Deficit Disorder, what kids today have and can (this matters!) recover from.

Richard Louv's new book is Our Wild Calling, How Connecting with Animals can Transform Our Lives - and Save Theirs. In this anthology of stories, science and solutions, he invites us to dwell in and create Habitats of the Heart, and live a Reciprocity Principle. His work forms a vision alternative to dystopian despair, using poetry and practicality.

Since his landmark publication in 2007 of "Last Child In The Woods," Richard Louv has become an international spokesperson for the value of humans connecting (and re-connecting) to Nature.  Earthworms is honored to share this conversation with you!

Music: Taproom, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran

THANKS to Andy Heaslet from Sierra Club, Earthworms engineer
Related Earthworms Conversations: Ralph Nader on his Fable "Animal Envy" (Nov 2016)
Joe Mohr, Poet and Enviro-Cartoonist (Nov 2015)

Resources: Check out and subscribe to eNewsletters of BiodiverseCity St. Louis and the Missouri Environmental Education Association. Even if you don't live near KDHX, you'll find good stuff you can use in these well-crafted missives. 

Here in St. Louis, few of us deal with is, most of us rarely see it, and hardly any of us have ever been ON it. But the Mississippi River is a force here. And on Earth, as our planet's fourth largest watershed. Missouri Historical Society tell's this river's story in a new exhibit, Mighty Mississippi - that lives up to its name!

Hear the story behind this 5-year exhibit project from David Lobbig, Curator of Environmental Life at MHS. David has lived it, from the tough choice among artifacts to the messages this landmark work aims to convey, Mighty Mississippi conveys a torrent of human and natural history. Then go see the exhibit!

Photos from MHS: (top) Exhibit logo; Harper's Weekly illustration of St. Louis Mississippi River 1800s waterfront; Mississippi River facts; (bottom) David Lobbig and Amanda Bailey, MHS Exhibits Register, install a 1,000 year old salt pan; river trash sculpture by Libby Reuter; frozen Mississippi in 1905. 

Mighty Mississippi is open to the public through April 18, 2021, in Missouri History Museum in Forest Park.
Admission is free.

Music: Cadillac Desert, performed live at KDHX by William Taylor

THANKS to Sasha Hay and Jon Valley, Earthworms engineers

Related Earthworms Conversations: 

Barge-Based Trash Basher Chad Pregracke (May 2017)

River Des Peres Watershed with Theo Smith (August 2018)

Invest in Infrastructure, Nature's and Ours - Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative (April 2017)

See Water: Watershed Cairns, Artist Libby Reuter (April 2016)

What's the latest from Climate activist Brian Ettling? He's been at this work since 2012, specifically working toward U.S. legislation through the Citizens Climate Lobby, and speaking up about it!.

Brian catches up on his work as Chair, Climate Reality Project in Portland, Oregon - climate out there  bit different than in STL - with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi. A LOT of interactions, as we plug away at IMPACTS.

Music: Big Piney Blues, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms volunteer engineer, enviro-action professional with Sierra Club

Related Earthworms Conversations: Climate Communications at Saint Louis Zoo (Sept 2019)

Grow Solar St. Louis and Metro East (August 2019)

Ecology is still relatively "new" to circles of scientific respect, but Indigenous peoples world-wide have grown scientific, creative and functional expertise from ecological understanding, as long as humans have been around. What can we learn from this today?

Ecologist Alejandro Frid works and learns in circles of science, Indigenous cultures and environmental activism in British Columbia. Perspectives and experience shared in his new book Changing Tides, An Ecologist's Journey to Make Peace with the Anthropocene (New Society, 2019) make this Earthworms conversation one worth hearing, sharing and seeding into our world views.

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms' audio engineer

Music: Artifact by Kevin MacLeod

Related Earthworms Conversations: Native Science with Dr. Daniel Wildcat (October 2018)

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

Environmental problems make a lot of news, but solutions are in the works in many places too. Where thinking around a whole system is taking place, ideas-in-action deserve a listen!

Beth Porter, Climate Campaigns Director for the DC based non-profit Green America, digs into making solutions work, toward a green economy. 

The Earthworms conversation focuses on Porter's recent extensive research into recycling - her book Reduce, Reuse, Reimagine sorts out the recycling system - and on Green America's Cool It! campaign to transform refrigerants from climate-whacking HFCs to options that will keep cool both our stuff and our planet.  

Green America works to harness economic power - the strength of consumers, investors, businesses and the marketplace - to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.  

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer

Music: Butter II, performed live at KDHX by Ian Ethan Case

Related Earthworms Conversations: Drawdown: Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (March 2018)

Bin There, Do This! STL Recycling Update (June 2018) 

From her focus on Food, Tosha Phonix embodies the transforming nature of her namesake for the communities she serves. As Food Justice Organizer for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Tosha is growing connections between environmental and social justice efforts in powerful, insightful ways. Word from her: she is so dope.

Tosha Phonix talks Jean Ponzi as part of a series of Earthworms conversations honoring MCE's 50 years of service to Missouri humans and our environment. She's rooting her ideas and connections to communities of color into the work of the MCE team, at a time when Earth needs all of our diverse human contributions more than ever.

"You need to believe in community to allow a community to solve its own problems," she says. "And if you protect people, people will protect the Earth." Listen up to learn and be inspired by much more, including Tosha's accelerating experience with Women's Earth Alliance.

Music: Dirty Slide, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran

THANKS to Andy Heaslet of Sierra Club, Earthworms engineer 

Related Earthworms Conversations -

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

Urban Agriculture Guide: A Tool for City Farmers (June 2016)

Leah Clyburn: Organizing to End Environmental Racism in St. Louis (Oct 2019)

The cover image on this report shows a painful face of St. Louis: the stark "Delmar Divide" with its north-south, black-white, disadvantaged and more privileged split up the middle of this city's economics, social and cultural resources. Not a worthy picture, but a growing body of action. 

Just released in October 2019, Environmental Racism in St. Louis concentrates results of other reports, commissioned by official sources, into one from the people profiled by the data. Each of 8 chapters details a serious issue with environmental roots, from persistent lead pollution to the bluntly defined Food Apartheid. 

Leah Clyburn, organizer in the Sierra Club Missouri Beyond Coal campaign, led this effort for Sierra Club, collaborating with leaders of Action St. Louis, Arch City Defenders and Dutchtown South Community Corporation. The Interdisciplinary Law Clinic at Washington University prepared the report. Clyburn's take on these issues, in this Earthworms conversation and her work at large, is a rare merger of frank no-compromise and sincere encouragement to engage. 

Music: Taproom, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms Engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: St. Louis Metro Market: Grocery Story in a Bus (June 2015) 

Sweet Potato Project: Growing Social Justice, One Garden at at Time (Sept 2016) 

Understanding how we humans think, act and prioritize our decisions, Wisconsin sociologist and energy expert Kathy Kuntz founded Kanndo Consulting, LLC in a career move move from "simply" promoting energy efficiency to engaging US in sustainability dialogues and processes. Now she works with the tough stuff - and she believes we are worth the efforts.

In this lively Earthworms conversation, Kuntz and host Jean Ponzi polka through ideas and realities around creating a culture where Green practices are not only preferred, but are the norm.

Kuntz will speak in St. Louis on Tuesday October 8, as guest of the U.S. Green Building Council-Missouri Gateway Chapter. Catch this one, if you're in town! 

Music: Taproom, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran
Thanks to Sasha Hay, engineering this Earthworms edition

Related Earthworms Conversations: Morality and The Envio-Crisis with scholar and author Roger Gottlieb (April 2019)

DRAWDOWN: Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (March 2018)

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

Our Saint Louis Zoo is in the World Class of institutions of this kind. Make one click into the Zoo's Mission section and you'll find a strong, clear STL Zoo statement on Climate Change. 

Animal areas, especially the Zoo habitat of Kali the Polar Bear, interpret the meaning of Climate Change for visitors in ways that make connections between our human experience, the animals we admire and love, and Earth systems that support us all. But the Zoo doesn't stop there.

The STL Zoo Climate Communications Initiative is training Zoo staff, volunteers and community partners in a science-based set of frameworks to purposefully, actively converse with the public about Climate Change. Hannah Petri, the Zoo's Manager of Docents and Interpreters leads this effort, and talks with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi about taking up this crucial topic with our fellow human beings.

CLIMATE SOLUTIONS DAY at Saint Louis Zoo is Sunday September 29!

Source of these training materials is NNOCCI - the National Network for Oceanic and Climate Change Information. 

Music: For Michael, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations:

DRAWDOWN: Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Mar 2018)

Climate Rider Tim Oey (April 2019)

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

Slow Money's Woody Tasch on Culture, Poetry, Imagination, SOIL (July 2018)

Carl Pope: Creating a Climate of Hope (April 2018)

Enter the pathway, turn; you think you're headed right to center but - ho! you're on the outskirts of everything. Keep walking. In a Labyrinth, you can only (eventually) reach Center, then go steadily back to where you began. 

This kind of walking meditation is centuries old. Central Reform Congregation, active in the heart of St. Louis MO, is building a new pathway along these same lines, as artist and longtime CRC member Robert Fishbone leads a meditative labyrinth installation, part of the "Fitness Course for the Soul" on the grounds of CRC.

Joining Fishbone in this Earthworms conversation is Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow, from The Shalom Center in Philadelphia, who will visit CRC September 20-22 to speak about Faith and the Climate Crisis, and join STL youth for the Climate Strike on Sept 20 at City Hall. 

For the CRC labyrinth, Fishbone and CRC friends chose a "Jericho" design, representing the 7 walls around the ancient biblical city. CRC members and guests will construct this new feature of their urban sacred grounds on Sunday September 8, 1-4 pm; the public is welcome to join in the "honorable silence" of this meditative project, at the corner of Waterman and Kingshighway in St. Louis' Central West End.

Once installed on the grounds of CRC, the labyrinth will be accessible to serve as anyone's contemplative path.

Music: Balkan Twirl, performed live at KDHX by Sandy Weltman and the Carolbeth Trio

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms green-savvy audio engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: Chalk Riot Artist Liza Fishbone (May 2018)

Humans Listen Up in Ralph Nader's "Animal Envy" Fable (Nov 2016)