From green business and new environmental legislation to how nature impacts our environment in ways never before considered, Earth Wise offers a look at our changing environment every day through public radio.
About The Host: Randy Simon
Randy Simon has over 30 years of experience in renewable energy technology, materials research, superconductor applications, and a variety of other technical and management areas. He has been an officer of a publicly-traded Silicon Valley company, worked in government laboratories, the aerospace industry, and at university research institutions. He holds a PhD in physics from UCLA. Dr. Simon has authored numerous technical papers, magazine articles, energy policy documents, online articles and blogs, and a book, and holds seven patents. He also composes, arranges and produces jazz music
About WAMC Northeast Public Radio
WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a regional public radio network serving parts of seven northeastern states. These include New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Stations and translators are in twenty locations throughout the region. Alan Chartock is President and CEO of the network. Our studios and offices are located at 318 Central Avenue in Albany, NY.
WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is a member of National Public Radio and an affiliate of Public Radio International. Financial support comes from listeners who contribute annually in fund drives and other appeals as well as from underwriting by businesses, grant support for WAMC’s National Productions and governmental sources such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the New York State Education Department.
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WAMC/Northeast Public Radio operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year thanks to a very dedicated group of board members, staff, interns and volunteers.
Do you know what’s going on with your podcast? I see that articles are still being published daily, but the last podcast in the feed (I use iTunes) was August 30th.
We should have it back in operation shortly and apologize for the interruption in service. Thank you for listening!
Dear Randy:
“Into the Amazon” airs on PBS’ American Experience series on Tuesday, January 9, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET.
Written, produced and directed by John Maggio, Into the Amazon explores the perilous 1914 journey of President Theodore Roosevelt and legendary Brazilian explorer Candido Rondon into the dark and deadly heart of the Amazon rainforest to chart an unknown river in one of the wildest places on earth. What was anticipated to be a relatively tranquil journey turned out to be a brutal test of courage and character, claiming the lives of three men and almost killing the president. More than a dramatic story of adventure and survival, Into the Amazon shines a light on two of the western hemisphere’s most formidable men and the culture and politics of their two formidable nations.
Filmed on location in the Brazilian Amazon, the film features the voices of Alec Baldwin as Roosevelt, Wagner Moura (Narcos) as Rondon, and Jake Lacy (Girls) as Kermit Roosevelt.
You can view a clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LT2nudva0E
John Maggio and Tweed Roosevelt are available for an interview. Please let me know if I can send you a viewing link.
All best,
Abbe
Abbe Harris
Senior Publicist
CaraMar, Inc.
908-244-5516
[email protected]
Hi i made a wind up clock charge devices underwater. It is the first safe renewable energy device that works under 24 hours a day
The only other options before this has been a nuclear battery. Please do a showcase abour this device. Manufacturers are not listening
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX34d7zC9SQ&feature=youtu.be
Please tell me how your radio can help have the device made. This device also powers gadgets everywhere. With this you can always know your children are safe 24 hours knowing they can always call you in an emergency.
This device is worth a lot. If you figure out how to have it made you are sure to get a lot for your help. Please help me have this device made.
I have the clock makers. I just need students protesting to have it made.
Love your segments! We heard the piece about the net energy input/output of solar panels. I want to be able to share that on our website solarize-hudsonvalley.org (not profit community education program funded by NYSERDA). Can you tell me when it might be available on your website?
Thanks for the kind words. Is this the segment you were looking for?
https://earthwiseradio.org/podcast/economics-of-solar-and-wind-power/
Dr. Simon,
You have investigated microfiber pollution. If you have not done a program devoted to Guppyfriend I urge you to look into it. Multiple countries and institutions are involved. Your listeners may not have encountered it; they should.
April 14, 2018
Listening to WAMC this week, just passing, I’m sure I heard Earthwise saying the aerosol spraying program is necessary to counteract global-warming/climate-change.
If that is the idea you are promoting it’s time you read about the dangers of Solar Radiation Management, as put forward during the 2011 Congressional hearings on this and other methods of geoengineering.
I can get these to you, or the short-form list we’ve compiled from Professor Robock’s testimony at that time.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening and reaching out to us. Our most recent segment related to this topic said: “As denial of climate change becomes increasingly untenable, a troubling new narrative appears to be emerging in its stead. The idea is that geoengineering can address climate change as an alternative to mandating the reduction of emissions and promoting the adoption of clean energy technologies. This is an extremely dangerous game to play.” That is hardly advocacy for pursuing geoengineering or claiming that it is necessary.
Hello,
I subscribe to the podcast via your feed on your website, and even though there are new episodes, I haven’t received a new one in months. The itunes feed is updating, but your rss feed does not appear to be updating.
Thanks!
Hi there! The feed has been updated. You can subscribe to the feed on itunes, or by using this link
Thanks!
To the Head of the Marketing/Strategy Team,
We have published a report on Global Cordless Battery Powered Push Lawn Mowers Market – Forecasts to 2025.
Kindly drop me an email if you are interested in looking at the sample pages of the report.
You do such a terrific job of this, Randy — thank you. It must take A LOT of work pulling it together and you make it sane and balanced and sobering. Shameful, what we’re continuing to do. Twenty+ years ago when I had what was then the first environmental page in what was then an, albeit small-scale, short-lived, national Hearst magazine, I actually thought when the collective ‘we’, understood what we’re doing to the natural systems upon which our lives depend, that of course we’d change. Yeah, right. How not to despair, I’d like to know. And again, thank you for the journalist quality of your caring.
Greetings,
I’d like to get your permission to translate to Spanish your programs (maybe just one per week) to share in a Spanish environmental education website (jmarcano.com)
The website was maintained by my brother but he passed away early this year, so I’m exploring for good sources of environmental news. I enjoy very much your section and always look forward to listen to it every afternoon, during my commute from South Hadley to Worcester, MA.
I’ll always give credit to the original source (in English) of the article and note that it’s just a translation (probably shorter) of the original, for more information they should check the original source.
Let me know if this is possible.
Regards
Eugenio – Please send an email to our Earth Wise producer: [email protected]. On behalf of all, thank you for your interest!
Right after your reply, last November, I have emailed [email protected] a couple of times, and I haven’t gotten any reply.
thanks for your wonderful program
Eugenio
We are sorry about that, Eugenio. Please send along another note. We will make sure it’s not getting caught in our spam folder. Please make the subject Earth Wise.
thanks for you responses. I just emailed again. Looking forward for an answer.
Eugenio
A Simple (Fund Raising, Commonly Repeatable) Experiment to Determine Human Causation of Global Warming
PERHAPS, the more we use solar, the more it will suck the heat out of the atmosphere, to the point of GLOBAL COOLING, giving us an incentive to develop evacuated insulation cells. So there needs to be an open source experiment to answer, in a way that could be demonstrated to all non-scholars, whether or not CO2 causes global warming (not some high tech data that even scientists have no way of personally knowing to be true): put a solar heat source at one end of an insulated tube with a recording thermometer on the other & vary the CO2 content in the tube to see what specific effect specific concentrations might have, put it all on the web & sell kits to allow people to reproduce the experiment for themselves, so as to raise funds for the environment. Ironicly, if solar does cause cooling, we’’ll want to know absolutely for sure how much CO2 in the air will act as a blanket.
Meanwhile there are indications of the geothermal industry is involved in co-generation schemes, which has local activists looking toward geothermal as part of the solution, but geothermal ought to be banned outright, except in cases of capping naturally occurring vents. (The erupting volcano in Hawaii had a geothermal plant right next to it, THOUSANDS of feet deep, which was, even if not the major cause, a definite precipitant.) Also, we REGULARLY hear or read about geothermal as an ecological solution. Salesmen try to claim that wells 300’ deep are only collecting what the sun provides each day. Yet we all know they use earthen housing in the SW for insulation, with walls a bit less thick than 300’. What if we ALL did that? Capping naturally occurring vents is one thing. The molten core is the source of the magnetic field that protects all life on this planet from the sun’s radiation. We definitely want to sustain THAT. Once the “moltenness” is gone, so is the magnetic field. Perhaps we might even end up provoking tectonic catastrophe (or even collapse, causing the east coast to rise up over the Midwest before upending & sinking into the molten soup?), or at least filling the skies with enough ash to create widespread famine. Geothermal needs to NOT be encouraged. It is not an answer.
I came to this experiment because I’ve been spending every spare moment since ’96 working for Ranked Ballot (voters ranking candidates in order of preference), so I missed a lot of the argument concerning human sourced global warming (tho when I was a child, when it snowed it stuck all winter, but now, 300 miles North, it barely stays around for days). By the time I paid attention, there appeared the all too common pursuit of argument by repetition, brain-washing & brow beating. There was no repetition of the basic arguments however, howsoever unrepeatable the experiments would have been for me (much less most scientists). I imagine it was the evidence from the ice cores. Presumably, we can trust a large group of scientists, no possibility they could be tricked into it by means of magic, ambition, insecurity, ideology or dependency or whatever. (Nonetheless, we ought to keep up with whatever environmental moves the Chinese make, like subsidizing solar.) I also liked Gore’s point that Venus is hotter than Mercury, though Mercury is closer to the sun, again, howsoever unverifiable that is by a person like myself & I wonder how mere hundreds of parts per million could have such a strong effect or why just a couple of degrees of temperature rise should have such catastrophic effect. At the Environmental demo in DC a fledgling videographer cut me off when I started with skepticism, so that’s proof of what scholars are capable of. However likely it is that the scientists are correct in what they say, ADDRESSING such doubts as I have mentioned, & not sitting back in smug superiority, might be a better response to the severity of the crisis they tell us we are facing, if anyone really cares as much as they claim.
Meanwhile, Ranked Ballot (voters ranking candidates in order of preference) will give us objective & ECOLOGICAL policy AND politics, as surely as it is the solution to all things. Here’s a HOW TO, should anyone be seriously concerned: ESPECIALLY, let all for RB write it in, leastwise for their least important contest in every election.
Because it gives an equal chance of winning to not just all parties, but all combinations of programs, Ranked Ballot, voters ranking candidates in order of preference, is simultaneously both most Just AND most Free Because of this great light in the eyes of the world & cause it always takes its majority from the middle (while giving an equal chance to all PROPOSALS, on a case by case basis, not just one every eight years & to all VIEWPOINTS to sway the mass in their direction) RB is more top-dead-center counter-extremist than all the many recent retrenchments combined.
The “additive” form of RB is voters ranking candidates in order of preference. The first choices are counted, & then, if no one has 50%, the next choices are added in, & so on, until someone finally does.
Also, let all for RB, particularly students & professors, churches & other local associations, with their great proximity & pre-existing democratic organizations, install RB locally, try to get on the ballot to run on the single issue, ask those who’ve signed their petition to petition for them as well, promise an RB/“Organized Communications”-based Citizens’ Advisory Board to guide us in the rest, do local bulk mailings, demand a response from office holders to RB, vote for those supporting RB, tell all their friends about RB, help publicize RB (a full page US national ad would be sufficient to put RB to all the world, assuring that everyone knows that everyone knows about RB, making it impossible to ignore (as big media did in the case of the 2016 victory in Maine (including PBS) &/or see Preferentiality On Yahoo Groups, for a breakdown of what RB might & might not accomplish.
OC is small randomly assigned discussion groups electing reps to higher & higher random levels, til one small group, most in the middle, remain. (If you’re paranoid, & I know you are, these are things you can do without going outside your comfort zone. The general paranoia is the biggest reason why it is important that pot be decriminalized, to free us to talk with each other, asap. Not only are the current laws robbing us of our current Freedom, but they’re undermining Freedom in general in the future.)
The RECENT win in Maine for RB, the first right-leaning locale to adopt it is truly transformative. Benton Co, Oregon, left-leaning, also passed a similar law at the same time. A bill to allow[!] RB in NYC comes up every year & will no doubt again. The COMPETENT HAVE NOTHIN TO FEAR from such a reform. They would rise in any situation. Further, RB won’t really change the essence of any area, just give its inhabitants more subtlety, adaptivity, light-footedness, objectivity, nuance & a perfect reflection of their TRUE desires.
Ranked Ballot will give us PRACTICABLE INSTANT FULFILLED DEMOCRACY EVERYWHERE, an end to war & the preparations for war, as well as other energy saving devices. Because it gives an equal chance of winning to all combinations of programs, not just parties, RB is simultaneously both most Just & most Free. RB is to the unsustainable horse & buggy two-party system as shopping at the Mall of America is to shopping in Soviet Russia.
(Should the people so decide) RB will truly allow ANYTHING FROM Sharing the Work, STW, the work week attached to the unemployment rate (ending foot-dragging & too big to fail, & promoting productivity), THRU Women’s Equal Representation (one of each districts’ (2) reps a women) ALL THE WAY TO replacing public education with having to PROVE LITERACY TO VOTE (now that there’s broadband & 24/7 infinitely reiterative teaching machines & education is universally valued), It will give us the perfect marriage of Justice with an eye for Freedom & Freedom with an eye for Justice.
Ten to the power of ten (ten levels of groups of ten) would be sufficient to include, organize & UNITE ALL INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF HUMANITY, not just elites. For those with fear of REMOTE CONTROL of voting machines, the larger the discussion groups, the fewer the levels needed.
RB WILL GIVE US All Powers to Their Lowest Appropriate Level, a Head for the Headless (Tech) Beast, An Ecological Politics, A PERFECT MARRIAGE OF Rich & Poor, Left & Right, FREEDOM & JUSTICE, Tradition & Modernity, Young & Old, Red, Black & White, Woman & Man & Palestinian & Jew, A Head for the Headless (tech) Beast, A Middle Way & even a Real Solution for Bleeding Syria, Ukraine, Central African Republic or wherever’s next.
BY ITS MERE SHINING EXAMPLE RB will win the hearts & minds of all mankind & give them something worth fighting for. The world is still just on the edge of a whirlpool it has only begun to climb out of & it is not yet clear whether we will be falling back in, to kill, torture & exploit each other to the end of time (not having a second perfectly sized & timed New World to save us again) be that descent by overpopulation or other profligacy, high-tech dictatorship, literalist, thermidorian or gangsterist contretemps, or economic, environmental or TECTONIC collapse. RB will solve the unsustainability of both of the (virtually two-party) democratic systems, king-of-the-hill presidential or biggest-gang-on-the-block proportional, good sources of the world’s problems (if only by sin of omission). RB will also give democratic-centralist regimes the means to avoid adventurism & subjectivity & Arabs a means to choose their leaders from the non-violent mass of the middle. It will put an end to war & all other forms of violence, past or present, retrieving thereby all the excess currently being wasted on dead-end non-productive military (& policing) uses. It will give us (virtually) instant TRUE democracy, for the entire world, no matter what ladders are pulled up behind.
While POWER finally belongs to THE INDIVISIBLE INDIVIDUAL, the great unifying effect of RB (aka IRV, Preferential, Australian, Single Transferable or Choice Voting) will give us the BEST answer to ALL things, whether desired or feared (even if not necessarily in the form imagined) though at the risk (& benefit) of people changing their minds but all the while materially establishing the principles of Justice as the redress of past violence, Freedom as its current absence & Non-Violence as the basis of all morality, be that violence by individuals, groups OR THE STATE.
Because of RB’s equal chance of winning, it has brakes, reverse, 3D, hyper-drive, subtlety, light-footedness & objectivity. Both more Freedom & Justice (free market & commune-ity) can be found in RB than in any ideology. Brakes & Reverse mean NO MORE NEED TO SUPPRESS POPULAR MOVEMENTS around the world. Light-footedness means that the concerns of BOTH passions, (Justice and Freedom) will have input & real time consideration at every point.
RB would be equally useful for all systems, parliamentary or presidential (the parliaments by picking their Prime Ministers by RB from among the members, so as to prevent the rise of yet another extremist monster coops, collective leaderships, tribal groupings, religious confessions, political parties &/or associations. RB would be the sole unchangeable plank and bylaw of a PREFERENTIAL BALLOT PARTY, the only PRACTICABLE alternative party. Of course, it’d mean lots of folks having to let go of the nut (to get their fist back out of the hole) resting in the knowledge of RB’s sure aim (as if anyone would then care what the exact denouement might be). Putting any program before needed reforms to the system means you’ll get neither, but RB will give us both. How can we ask it of others if we do not have it ourselves? It must be in somebody’s interest.
RB is in Portland, Maine, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Telluride, Colorado, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley & San Leandro, also Memphis. Good enough for New Zealand, Australia, Kerala India(?), Iraq (even if not quite instantaneously, but for the selection of the President, by a 2/3 vote of the parliament (not the people) & only in the first round, with a contest between the top two in the second, ie: a snail mail run-off), London, Ireland for the selection of its President, the Province of Ontario, Cambridge Mass, Burlington & 95% [?] of the townships of Vermont, Pierce County Washington, the Twin Cities, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland & San Leandro CA, the Utah Republican Party for the selection of statewide candidates (even if only once upon a time), the platforms of both the 9national) Green & Libertarian Parties & MANY COLLEGE STUDENT BODIES across the US, with more coming every year, most recently Maine & Benton County Oregon, & a dozen additional locations voting on it by referendum in the coming year, BUt NOT FOR THE REST OF US?
ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL, nothing should prevent individuals from entering into agreements with each other, or to engage in activities the collective does. Governments should not be picking winners & losers. All powers to their lowest appropriate level. One would think that the US would already be mirroring the efforts of the rest of the world in the development of sustainability. Something’s funny going on there, thank ya two-party system.
Dems (& Reps & 3rd Parties) need to start running their own primaries, using RB, Organized Communications & progressive party dues (in the case of left-leaning parties) or, (in the case of right-leaning parties) bidding for seats on the board, voting by # of shares in the party. The form chosen will no doubt determine the resulting platform.
A STRAIGHT LINE PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX (&/or STW) from zero for some low point, where all the Congress can do is set the slope of a line, essentially producing an infinity of rates, not the two or three insultingly retrograde tiers they did come up with, at the start of the computer age! In any event, a straight line Progressive Income Tax is all the socialism anyone should need. Norman Thomas’s actual platform was to the right of the Democrats of today. A SIMPLE property tax, based on the total square footage of all land and floor space of each property, regardless of improvements, would be the most efficient & incorruptible way to go, as well as encourage improvements. Broad strokes usually are best.
RB will give us all the fairness, payback & make-up one could wish for, clean back to the Cro-Magnons, a real solution to terror, ecologically sustainable politics, what’s best for all workers, instant global women’s liberation, world-wide luxury, a rationalization of the drug war, human unity of the voluntarist kind, ultimate retail politics, perfect compromise, “phantasmagoric subtlefaction”, real-time alternatives to all proposals, from wherever: market, coop or social (or tribal, theological or universal), an answer to infinitely more questions at a time than the two party system’s “who’s less bad”, an adequate safety net, no more need to suppress popular movements around the world, more Liberty & Justice than can be found in any ideology, subtlety & nuance, responsivity, light-footedness, long-sightedness, economy & frugality, accountability, an end to all the various forms of hegemonism (whether up front, subterranean or unconscious) in exchange for the so great burden of leading the world to the light, no more need to fear self-expression, politics as a family discussion around the kitchen table, no more drunkenly jumping back & forth between extremes, with its consequent absence of the economists’ requirement of predictability for growth, the Freedom of Justice & the Justice of Freedom & perhaps eventually, even more than inadequate global confederation (but with all powers to their lowest appropriate level).
Consider that which is common in the sight of all men. Men do not light a light & set it under a bushel. The maker & sustainer of this world & cosmos could have no need of it. He could just tear it up & start all over. If the seller of some land came to take it back by force, how could he be in the right? It would be absurd to think that the original vision of commune-ism did not involve democracy & egalitarianism as the end, & not the (at best) temporary-emergency expedient of the dictatorship of (over) the proletariat [sic], especially now that the king is dead & aristocracy & imperialism is essentially defeated. Let there be the great committee of proportionally, one male & one female, of each of the three adult age groupings of youth householder & elder, of each of the four tribes of man : Nordic, Desert (Mediterranean/Arab/Persian/Jewish/Hindu) African & Oriental & of the three body types of forest, plains & mountain, &/or such a result as would reflect what that would have created. The men of violence (as well as the Presidential systems) need to have presidential councils, in which a new member gets elected every term, so that they may retire gradually, without having their egos shattered (a collective leadership), not to mention (can’t be repeated enough) an equal number of women as men on all committees.
The lodestar of *RB* should be constantly kept in mind, no matter what situation people find themselves in. Only those who are afraid of the strength of their own arguments in the market place of free ideas (a potentially good test of the correctness of their views) could oppose this. Tell us where we’re wrong. RSVP.
Today ~ 4:30pm, I listened to “Earth Wise”. I had a question about the subject (developing a spoiling-sensor for milk packaging), but I don’t know where to send it.
Thank you.
Howard Blas
Please send your inquiry to our producer: [email protected] Thanks for listening.
I listen to WETS radio and last Thurs or Fri Sept 19/20, 2019) there was a report that spoke about a new technology that could refuel a plane while i the air by tapping into the clouds to get hydrogen. How can I get a copy/podcast or transcript of that info? My son is very interested in that topic.
Good morning! Love your show! How do you go about being a guest on the show? Would love to talk to you sometime. I work for a niche environmental company that recycles wastewater and helps to preserve our aquifer. Thank you!
Please email our producer: [email protected]
Thanks for your interest.
There are an awful lot of rubber tires on the highways and roads of the world
The tread wears down, we replace the tires. Where is all of the rubber dust. Seems like you would be able to see evidence along side of the highway.
How much rubber are we breathing?
I recently saw this link to research done by an MIT student on the health impact of indoor CO2. Apparently the air we exhale has a CO2 concentration of 40,000 ppm and accumulates in our indoor spaces I had no idea that it can get so high and have such a deleterious effect on our cognition. I think it would make a good feature for Earth Wise.
https://medium.com/@joeljean/im-living-in-a-carbon-bubble-literally-b7c391e8ab
I am commenting on the earthWISE segment on the Red Panda! As media is less than trustworthy, I read the study used as reference for this story.
Did I somehow miss the author’s statement that “Climate Change” was a factor in the possible dangers facing this creature… or was that statement fabricated by earthWISE, to push the climate change narrative? Nowhere in the Red Panda “study” was climate even mentioned.
This program will now reside in the bin of propaganda sites,
Thank you for sharing the indoor CO2 information. I would like to call your attention to this recent research, published in the Sunday Post, which projects a dire future for ocean life as populations of plankton have already crashed.
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/humanity-will-not-survive-extinction-of-most-marine-plants-and-animals/
Hi, Listened to your segment on California’s water issues. I was born and raised in California , love the state but not the politics, finally moved out of there at 66 years old. Unfortunately, you conveniently left out a few facts. California has ALWAYS had wet and dry years. The infrastructure ( including water ) was built for 18 million people and there are now over 40 million. There have been at least three studies showing that if Cali would build three more reservoirs we would have enough water for everything and everyone, even in drought years, but they do not get built either because of politics or some bird or frog or whatever. Fires have gotten worse over the years but not just because of droughts and “climate change”, a lot of it is due to poor forest management by both federal and state agencies and somewhat by power companies not keeping their infrastructure in good shape. People are moving deeper into the forests which puts them at higher risks. I am trying to keep an open mind but you seem to push a certain narrative and approach your articles and radio segments from that narrative. I have heard over and over throughout my 67 years of being alive that mankind is destroying this earth, that we only have 10-20 years to correct it ( heard that many times over the last sixty years ), that fossil fuels are bad and electric good, etc. etc. You should be more honest in your segments. I have no doubt man can destroy this environment but we are not there yet and the “solutions” are not solutions at all but an agenda. Electric, wind and solar power are way off in the distant future and natural gas, coal and petroleum are a necessity for probably at least the next 50-100 years. I have found the old saying ” follow the money” is a wise way of looking at things, especially now with the ” Green New Deal ” running rampant without looking at all outcomes and consequences of these policy decisions.
Dear Randy Simon,
I always look forward to what I can learn from your information packed commentaries on WAMC, focusing on the environment. I am writing now to point out that your information on the advantages of pyrolysis (Sept 14, 2023) as a solution to the plastic pollution/recycling problem omits the following information:
Pyrolysis uses more energy to produce pyrolysis oil or fuel which releases more co2 emissions thus canceling environmental value of the product.
Over decades there have been many attempts to develop efficient technology to address the plastic production waste problem. To date these efforts have not succeeded on a worthwhile scale. Its a poor investment.
The idea that Chemical recycling is a solution to plastic pollution encourages the production of more plastic, propping up the throw away economy.
The powers supporting development of Advanced or Chemical Recycling happen to be the plastic producers, consumer brands and the fossil fuel industry. They are trying to extend the market that has need for fossil fuel.
I have attached some links which provide substantial resources on pyrolysis, gasification, chemical recycling, advanced recycling, etc processes.
I hope you will check out this information which I believe will change your understanding of pyrolysis in the bigger picture.
Sincerely,
Sarah Mecklem
Member of CCAPP (Citizens Concerned About Plastic Pollution)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXrq_h8Tczc
https://www.beyondplastics.org/site-search#eapps-search-911599a6-defd-4490-b5da-9840e21a5aed-advanced%20recycling%20or%20pirolysis
Re Mr Simon’s observation 11/29/23 that cats are the leading causes of bird deaths, I note first I’m not a pet owner, but I like my scientists to be accurate in their reporting. That cats kill birds is of course true, but I doubted Mr. Simon’s claim, however it’s become an accepted fact among (I’ve noticed) dog owners.. A minute of Web research revealed its weak foundation.
In the context of habitat loss, pesticides, invasive species, and climate change–not to mention, as Mr. Simon reported, light pollution and building glass–listing cats as the #1 cause of bird death is misleading, counterproductive, and ethnocentric. What about vast areas of the world in which cats are not kept as pets and are, compared to the U.S., relatively uncommon?
When you report as fact such easily debunked myths, you call into question your otherwise sound and important observations. Thank you for the program, I enjoy it. But–writing as a fellow journalist, i remind us both to question our assumptions.
Thanks for writing in and for your support of our program. Many studies support the position that cats are the number one threat to birds. Here are a couple of references:
https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/threats-birds
https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Threats-to-Birds.pdf
Hello: I have enjoyed your short summaries for many years. Earlier this week on WAMC in Albany, NY, the local news segment included a clip about a bill passed by the NYS Legislature this summer called the Birds and Bees Protection Act, and the comments of the NY Farm Bureau, claiming that if the Governor signs it, farmers will have to use more toxic pesticides rather than the neonicotinoids it limits. And they claimed pesticides aren’t the biggest harms to bees – both inaccurate. Might you focus on accurate causes of bee population losses in the coming weeks? The research and environmental support for the bill are extraordinary, including state and national groups like NRDC, Friends of the Earth and more. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sWpnhX8CvNTmvhXDSbb50jwgSH-o51Yq/view
Thank you for what you do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi Sarah! We appreciate your kind comment and support over the years. We actually did a segment on that topic recently: https://earthwiseradio.org/podcast/banning-neonicotinoid-pesticides/
Thanks for listening!
Dear Mr. Simon,
I often listen to Earth Wise and have one main comment to make about most of the topics you talk about. While the production of chocolate may be threatened by climate change, what is more concerning is that CC poses an existential threat to humanity.
It gave me pause that your sing-song way of reciting these impending crises, i.e. chocolate shortages, Colorado river crisis, were all elaborated on, but you failed to mention THE most unsettling information that scientists have recently discovered: the level of CO2 emissions has risen to 426.7 ppm!! This level of carbon in the atmosphere is mind-blowing and was last this high several million years ago. Bill McKibben commented on this latest discovery saying it should be the headline on the front page of every major newspaper in the U.S. But your program failed to mention it at all, as far as I know. You missed a very important teachable moment and I hope that you will take the time to talk about this latest discovery and the fact that the optimal level of carbon in the atmosphere is 350 ppm.
Barbara Trypaluk, environmental activist