KDHX Earthworms

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)

Solar costs are going down, while equipment efficiency continues to improve. Even if electric rates are stable where you are, solar provides climate protecting clean, renewable power. Could this be the time you consider going solar?                        

Lisa Cagle of Grow Solar St. Louis and Chris Krusa of Grow Solar Metro East talk with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi about these program offerings for the St. Louis region, and about the benefits of solar in general. Check the program websites for details, including Power Hour presentations around town.

Supported by program contractor StraightUp Solar, and in partnership with municipalities, Grow Solar is bringing discounted costs and convenient, thorough solar option info to STL region communities in both Missouri and Illinois. Residential installs can combine group-buy cost-cuts with federal, local and utility incentives and rebates. At Power Hour events, solar experts will evaluate individual sites for solar power potential, on the roof or on the ground.

Music: Mister Sun's tune Hunters Permit, performed live at KDHX
THANKS to Andy Heaslet, fellow Green Being and audio engineer.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Set The PACE St. Louis: Clean Energy and Energy Efficiency Financing (January 2017)

All Electric America? (August 2016)

American Solar Challenge: Sun-Powered Collegiate Racers (July 2016)

TED Talks bring Ideas Worth Sharing to audiences worldwide, in the legendary live-speaking forums for Technology, Entertainment and Design. In St. Louis, TEDx Gateway Arch proudly features all local voices, in our town's best venues.

                 

CRASH COURSE is the theme when TEDx brings artists, entertainers and revolutionaries to The Pageant on Thursday, September 12 at 6 p.m. This program will feature TWO eco-logical speakers: Sarah Aman, graphic designer at PGAV, and KDHX's own Jean Ponzi. Plus live music, interviews and performance art.

Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer and Sierra Club Conservation Specialist, guest-hosts this special edition of Earthworms, where our longtime host gets to be the guest, and both guests encourage us humans to swerve on the course, as well as we can.

Check out the Crash Course program online - and at the show, or when this round of TEDx talks is posted on YouTube.

Thanks to Alive! Magazine for a conversation with Jean, with Negativity coming through as a FUNdamental of Earth Life.

Music: Inferno Reel, performed live at KDHX by Matt Flinner.

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Guest Host and Engineer for Earthworms.

Related Conversations: Legendary St. Louis Activist and TEDx Crash Course presenter Percy Green talks with Hank Thompson on Tangazo! (July 2018)

Global Mosquito Alert aims to mobilize professional and volunteer citizen scientists from around the world, using mobile apps, to track and control mosquito borne viruses. Dr. Anne Bowser, Director of Innovation for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, reports on this collaboration involving citizen science associations in Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia and the U.S.

Backed by UN Environment, this initiative draws on successes from programs like Barcelona's public engagement Mosquito Alert and the school-based U.S. Invasive Mosquito Project. Because monitoring types of mosquitos and sites where mosquitos are breeding is a significant element in controlling mosquito borne diseases like West Nile and Zika Virus, yellow fever, malaria, chikungunya and and dengue fever.

Could St. Louis marshal this kind of collaboration? Check out this Earthworms conversation!

Music: Public Enemy, performed live at KDHX by Godfathers

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms so green savvy engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: Bug Off: Need to Know Mosquito Control from St. Louis County Vector Control (June 2017) Fight the Bite with the 4 Ds from City of St. Louis (July 2016)

PR pro James Hoggan has decoded misinformation campaigns, and researched how humans learn, respond and can be manipulated. He's traveled through the "perfect storm" of climate communications, and explored what spurs us to become aggressively close-minded. These voyages into realms of despair have not dimmed his curious spirit, his determination to do, be, and communicate better.

Photos: Earthworms guest James Hoggan.  Hoggan (right) talking with scientist and environmentalist David Suzuki (left) and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, colleagues referenced in this interview. 

Our conversation draws from Hoggan's book I'm Right and You're an Idiot  - the toxic state of public discourse and how to clean it up (2nd edition 2019, New Society Publisher). We're focused especially on the latter part of the message. May you find this encouraging!

Learn more from James Hoggan's DeSmogBlog.

Music: Big Piney Blues, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran
THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms thoughtfully green engineer.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Handprints: Gregory Norris Retouches Human Impacts (March 2019)

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

Nuclear power plants. Radioactive waste from building the WWII atomic bombs. Low-grade nuclear weapons waste. Nuclear medicine.  These complicated technical issues are hardly citizen stuff, except for Kay Drey. 

Nuclear focused groups here and abroad consider St. Louis "ordinary citizen" Kay Drey as both ally and expert resource in their work. For well over 40 years, Kay has dug into these issues, both vetted researched them with science and policy professionals, and spoken up about them in countless public forums.

More impressive than her own advocacy, according to her longtime colleagues and friends Arlene Sandler (Board member for Missouri Coalition for the Environment) and special librarian Rebecca Wright, is how Kay has empowered countless fellow ordinary citizens to get up and testify, with personal viewpoints and facts, armed with info from Kay's files.

Kay Drey is an untiring opponent for causes she espouses, especially nuclear power, and an enviro Living Treasure in Missouri. Earthworms owes a great debt to Kay: in the show's first year her call to cover nuclear waste transportation issues affirmed for volunteer host Jean Ponzi that these conversations on KDHX were a real and necessary community service. Thank you, Kay Drey!

Kay is also a founding member of Missouri Coalition for the Environment. MCE is celebrating 50 years of achievement in 2019. This conversation with Kay Drey is one in a series of Earthworms tributes to the work of MCE, especially the people who help it grow.

Music: Bitter Root, performed live at KDHX by Matt Flinner
THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer and Partner-In-Green

Related Earthworms Conversations: 

A Tribute to Leo Drey (June 2015) 

MCE Food Policy Update (June 2019) 

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

As littered plastic from our bottles, bags, straws and more gets swept from streets to creeks to oceans, where the kinds of creatures we eat are eating plastic that passes to us, humans are growing more aware of this Plastic Pollution problem. But what can we do?

EcoChallenge.org leads a friendly competition for teams of people, nation-wide, who want move toward living Plastic-Free. Here is St. Louis, teams are taking this challenge from leading cultural institutions like Missouri Botanical Garden and the Saint Louis Zoo. From a wide range of learning and action options, EcoChallenge participants are tracking their Plastic-Free progress throughout this month of July. The program's goal is to build awareness and habits that persist when this summer's EcoChallenge ends.

 
EcoChallenge Director of Learning Lacy Cagle returns to Earthworms, detailing this initiative's What and Why. Joyce Gorrell, Green Team leader and Sustainability Projects  Manager for the Garden's EarthWays Center, joins Lacy to share what's motivating her, and her Garden EcoChallenge team.  

Listening to this Earthworms edition in July? Check out this Challenge!

Music: Jamie, performed live at KDHX by Yankee Racers

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer and partner-in-Green

Related Earthworms Conversations: Life Without Plastic? Jay Sinha says Emphatically YES (Jan 2018)

Lacy Cagle: Learning Green, Living Greener (Oct 2017)

TerraCycle Founder Tom Szaky Rocks Recycling! (Sept 2015)

Joyce Gorrell: How TerraCycle Works (Sept 2015)

Reduce, Prevent and Transform Waste with Kelly Dennings (Feb 2019)

Sometimes, here on Earthworms, we focus our conversation on one unique element of Life on Earth. This time it's Squirrels.

Don Corrigan - respected local newspaper editor, college professor and ranconteur - has done this too, with his new book Nuts About Squirrels, The Rodents That Conquered Popular Culture (McFarland, 2019). His talks on this topic are wildly popular, hear?

Don's research has unearthed nuggets about TV, movie, radio, cartoon, sports, community and Civil War squirrels. He also finds squirrels raising genuine enviro-awareness, right in our own backyards:

• Is climate change causing squirrels in America to migrate north, or move up into mountain elevations?
• Do humans bear any responsibility for disrupting squirrel habitat?
• Are squirrels better equipped than we are to deal with effects of climate change?

Keep your mind open and the holes in your house eaves closed up, to enjoy this salute to SQUIRRELS!

Thanks to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms fellow-enviro engineer

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

Popular Culture Related Earthworms Conversations: 

Population Media Center: Educating through Soap Operas (July 2017)

Jeff Ritter: KDHX 1st Voice On Air (and Ph.D. in American Culture,  July 2017)

And for those not so nuts about Squirrels: Humane Wildlife Solutions with Garry Guinn (March 2019)

State bird of Missouri and New York, symbol of happiness, poet's inspiration, and indicator of ecological health. All true of Siala sialis, a small thrush found in woodlands, farmlands, orchards - and your yard, if you're lucky and smart enough to offer them habitat.

Ann Earley and Bob Siemer are true friends and helpers of nature - also certified Master Naturalists. Missouri Prairie Foundation recently honored them with the Prairie Volunteer(s) of the Year Award, well deserved. Their knowledge of Bluebirds comes from keen, joyful observation and conserving care.

Ann and Bob are also members of the Missouri Bluebird Society, a feathered fan club about to hold their annual conference in St. Louis, July 12-14, 2019.

As we humans encroach on habitats of others, bluebird lore can inspire a more caring, savvy and careful approach - while singing!

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

Thanks to Andy  Heaslet, Earthworms fine-feathered engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: Purple Martins: America's Most Wanted Bird (May 2016)   The Owl Man of Forest Park (2015)

Bears! July 2018

Wild Bird Rehab: Supporting Songbirds with Joe Hoffman (June 2016)

Bluebird songs in the background courtesy of xeno-canto.

What does local food mean? And what do you need to know - and to prove - to grow capacity for local-food producers, and get their foods to an equitable range of eaters?

Missouri Coalition for the Environment is digging deep, strategically, into these questions, and raising a healthy crop of results! Two big ones are the launch of Known & Grown STL, a branding campaign to help progressive farmers working within 150 miles of St. Louis spread the word about their practices, their products and the sustainable principles grounding their work, and a Farm to Institution Feasibility Study.

Rae Miller (left), MCE's Local Food Coordinator, and Food & Farm Director Melissa Vatterott (right) lead a regional effort to better promote local foods and cultivate connections between farmers and consumers, at both individual and institutional scales. Developing data, partnerships and sound policy supporting Healthy Food Access  is one of four areas of priority focus for the Coalition.

This Earthworms conversation is the first in a series that will celebrate MCE achievements and leadership during this 50th Anniversary year.

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

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms green-savvy engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations:

The Farm Bill: A Citizen's Guide (January 2019) 

The Easy Chicken: Fowl Fun Comes to You (Dec 2018)

Custom Foodscaping with Matt Lebon (December 2018)

Farm on a Building Raises the Roof! (August 2016)

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

Just 7 years back, in 2012, Green-hearted architects Frank and Gay Lorberbaum and woodworker Paul Krautman launched an enterprise for city kids. Into an on-loan school gym space, they hustled wood supplies and sets of tools to empower children to design and build: furniture for their rooms and problem-solving skills for their own bright futures, every single Saturday morning.

Today Building Futures continues Saturday workshop sessions, takes tools and skill-building out to schools, collaborates with neighboring writing and cultural groups, runs very cool summer camps, and more STEAM-based project learning - in their own well-equipped city studio building!

Earthworms talked in 2013 with BF students, one of whom is about to enter Ranken Technical College. Today we welcome back Mister Frank (Lorberbaum), and meet program manager Mister Lawrence (Prograis) and Mister Jay (Reeves), BF's board VP who will take the helm in August of Boat Building Camp. Before this interview, these guys worked with 300 school kids, a normally constructive BF day.      

Building Futures Summer Camps are registering now. Triple Play camp for students entering grades 4-6 fills each day of camp week (July 8-12 and 22-26) with with Design & Build, Printmaking and Caribbean Festival Arts, as BF partners with neighboring arts groups. Boat Building Camp (July 29-August 2), open to children entering grades 4-8. Scholarships are abundantly available.

Congratulations to visionary leaders whose work building futures for urban children is creating structures with wood, in many lives. Could yours be touched too? Volunteer help is WELCOME!

Music: Big Piney Blues, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran
THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms deep-Green engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: The Big Book of Nature Activities (June 2016)

We love good food, and going out to eat it. Thanks to the St. Louis Green Dining Alliance, food and restaurant culture here is sustainably vibrant!

               
Jenn De Rose, Program Manager for our town's GDA, supports Green efforts of chefs, owners, managers and staff of over 110 restaurants, food trucks and catering companies, currently certified by GDA. Earthworms reviews the menu of options these food pros use to guide their integration of Green efforts into the demanding, glorious business of Food.

Joining De Rose and Earthworms host Jean Ponzi is Hamish Bahrami, owner of Cafe Natasha - certified with 4 Stars in their first GDA year - whose efforts have helped her culturally rich South Grand neighborhood become a Green Dining District.

KDHX connection: Jenn De Rose has DJ'd on FM-88 and GDA Program Assistant Victoria Donaldson serves on the KDHX Program Committee. THANKS for music contributions, too!

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

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, engineering Earthworms, working for Sierra Club
Related Earthworms Conversations: Custom Foodscaping with Matt Lebon (Dec 2018)

Kakao Chocolate: Best of the Bitter and the Sweet (Dec 2017)

Farmer Girl Meats: Pasture to Porch, Sustainably (June 2016)

Yes, Nature can probably get along without us, but we are here and we're part of Nature, our nature creates as well as whacks. How can we renew this connection? To heal and protect Nature - and us!

           

Andres Edwards - educator, media professional and welcomed returning Earthworms guest - brings ideas and heart to this conversation from his new book Renewal - How Nature Awakens Our Creativity, Compassion, and Joy (2019, New Society Publishers). 

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer

Music: Brandenburg No.4, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Kevin MacLeod

Related Earthworms Conversations: In the Company of Trees from Forest Bather Andrea Sarubbi Fareshteh (January 2019)

Handprints: Retouching Human Impacts with Gregory Norris (March 2019)

The Big Book of Nature Activities (January 2016)

Can we humans be "good" when our collective and individual actions contribute to environmental crises like climate change, habitat loss and species extinction? What does "good" mean? And how do we proceed in the face of consequences of our impacts?
                          
These are deep questions. Philosopher and environmental spirituality scholar Roger Gottlieb explores the ambiguities, challenges and opportunities we face, in his new book "Morality and the Environmental Crisis," and in this conversation with fellow enviro-advocate and deep thinker/feeler, Earthworms host Jean Ponzi.

Give a listen. Your thoughts and responses will not disappoint. And you may well come away motivated and encouraged.

Music: Abdiel, performed live at KDHX by STL's own Dave Black

Thanks to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms techno-sustainable engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: Handprints: Retouching Human Impacts with Gregory Norris (March, 2019)

Native Science: All Our Relations (Oct 2018)

Community Radio: Purpose, Value and Insider Insights (Aug 2015)

Listening to: the thread of a tale, voice music, history, mystery, action conveyed through words direct into heart and ears, eyes and mind. Teller and Audience merge in the story exchange.

     

The St. Louis Storytelling Festival is the largest free storytelling festival in the world. Celebrating its 40th year, for all ages of humankind, the alchemy of this event strikes sparks around our Big River town. Tellers of international to local renown will take their tales to public and special venues April 25 - May 4, 2019.

Current and former festival directors Lisa Overholser and Nan Kammann-Judd bring their love of this interaction to the Earthworms studio - and the festival brings a night of Irish tales to The Stage at KDHX on Tuesday, April 30.

Throughout time, people have preserved their culture, values, and beliefs through storytelling. Giving voice to the human experience, storytelling allows families and communities to pass on their history to succeeding generations, and it remains an evolving, dynamic art form.

Music: Butter II, performed live at KDHX by Ian Ethan Case
Thanks to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms Green-savvy audio engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: 

The Patterning Instinct in Human Nature with Jeremy Lent (June 2017)

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

Mid-way along his marathon cycling trip from CA to MA, Tim Oey is educating humans of all ages about: Oceans, Plastic, Climate Change and Kids. His two wheeling fleet travel mode packs everything he needs, with (as is his life practice) ZERO WASTE.

Tim's stop here with KDHX Earthworms followed three talks this morning at our neighboring Performing Arts Academy. He's on track for his goal of 180 talks in 95 days. Some are presentations, many are conversations. All are likely - as you can hear - thoughtful, encouraging, and gently intense about serious stuff.

Music: Magic 9, performed live at KDHX by Infamous Stringdusters
Thanks to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms Green-living engineer.

Related Earthworms Conversations: David Henry, Climate Walker (Dec 2015)

Brian Ettling's Climate Change Advocacy Marches On! (Oct 2018)

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