Eco Radio KC

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

EcoRadio KC is broadcasting during the KKFI Pledge Drive.  KKFI is listener supported radio.  If you share KKFI’s mission of providing an independent voice to music and information underserved or ignored by mainstream media, dial 888-931-0901. Consider becoming a Sustaining Member today. Ask for details on that option. Call 888-931-0901 or go online at K-K-F-I dot O-R-G to make your pledge.  You can call the number, go online, or use Facebook to show your support!

On this week’s EcoRadio KC, we feature another episode of Aunt Lainie’s Kitchen podcast.  Produced each week by KKFI volunteer, Lainie Renee, listeners can gather round the table to hear interviews and conversations centering around food and beverage in the Kansas City Metro area.

 

https://auntlainieskitchen.com/

 

EcoRadio KC is lucky that Lainie allows us to feature this amazing podcast. Tonight, we will hear What October Means to Me.

October can have many meanings to people. October is the start of fall in the Northern Hemisphere, with cooler weather and falling leaves.

Today, October has a federal holiday - Columbus Day - better known as Indigenous Peoples Day. This day officially celebrates the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, however, approximately 29 states, Washington, D.C. and about 216 cities have renamed it or replaced it with Indigenous Peoples Day. The main reason Columbus Day draws opposition is because of how the colonization of the New World negatively affected Indigenous people with disease, enslavement and famine.

At the end of our hour, Aunt Lainie has provided a bonus bite.

 

We support the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe. This will be a great radio hour!

 

“The whole world is one neighborhood.”  Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

On today’s show, host Terri Wilke will speak with her guest, Linda Klinker about her brainchild, Cans for the Community.

Cans for the Community was formed in May of 2005 in Lawrence, Kansas, with the belief that the simple act of recycling aluminum cans could benefit the community in more than one way.  Recycling aluminum can save valuable resources AND it generates funds for the good of the community.  It is a simple idea with powerful results!

http://cansforthecommunity.org/

Volunteers for Cans for the Community collect aluminum cans for recycling from businesses, apartment complexes, community recycling drop-off bins and at local events such as football games.  All proceeds from recycling are donated to local non-profit organizations.

Clearly marked Cans for the Community aluminum can bins are distributed to participating businesses in Douglas County, Kansas.  There are also  recycling drop-off bins for households and smaller businesses.

Aluminum has been produced since the early 1800’s.  It is easily reused and today approximately 75% of all aluminum produced in history is still in use.  It pays to recycle aluminum and when the cash is put to good use in the community – that is a win/win!

We support the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe. This will be a great radio hour!

This will be a great radio hour!

 

“The whole world is one neighborhood.”  Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.  This will be a great radio hour!

On today’s show, host Terri Wilke will speak with her guests about upcoming electric vehicle (EV) shows.  Better gas mileage, reduced emissions, and decreased noise make electric cars a great choice for drivers.

The Lawrence Kansas EV Showcase will be on Sunday, Oct. 6th from 11 AM through 3 PM at South Park on Massachusetts ST.  Terri will speak with Bill Steele, a member of the Sustainability Action Network, who has been active with organizing the event with the City of Lawrence and other sponsors.  Also on our show is Mike Wasikowski, an electric car owner and member of the City of Lawrence’s Public Transit Advisory Committee, who will tell listeners more about the event.

https://www.facebook.com/events/507735061874343

Next, representatives of Metro Energy Center and Orange EV will talk about an EV show in Kansas City KS on Oct. 4th 11 AM - 2 PM at the Kansas City Kansas Community College Technical Education Center.  This will be a ride and drive event in honor of National Drive Electric Week. In addition to several passenger vehicles listed in the Facebook event, Orange EV will be at the event showcasing one of their all-electric, heavy-duty yard trucks manufactured in KCK.

https://metroenergy.org/

https://orangeev.com/

https://metroenergy.org/event/drive-electric-kck/

There will be opportunities to get a feel for what owning an EV might be like and receive unbiased feedback from actual owners. It is National Drive Electric Week!

Did you know there are more than 40 electric vehicle models available for sale right now? Many major automakers offer plug-in electric vehicles that can go up to 300 miles on a single charge. That’s about 9 times more than the average person’s daily commute.  Find out more at https://driveelectricweek.org/

We support the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe. This will be a great radio hour!

 

“The whole world is one neighborhood.”  Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

On Monday’s show, host Richard Mabion and his co-host Rich Gutowski, are talking with Michelle DeHaven, Program Manager with Heartland Environmental Justice Center and Darren Beck, the Founder of Ingenuity LLC. They are going to discuss CIRCULAR ECONOMY.

Michelle DeHaven does some waste management work on the Environmental Finance Center side of Heartland Environmental Justice Center and she will bring an equity lens to a discussion about the circular economy. She can discuss how Heartland Environmental Justice Center could assist anyone trying to create a Circular Economy business.

https://heartlandej.org/

Darren Beck’s passion is finding the sweet spot between profitability and a positive return for our world. He has helped establish one of the country’s premier corporate sustainability programs at Sprint and led a vanguard of global brands toward good growth at Sustainable Brands. He thrives on building collaborative systems to address some of the most pressing issues of our time, including circularity, biomimicry, regeneration and place-based impact. Regenerative solutions are paramount. Circularity processes and connections should be applied at all levels, and across private and public spheres, to be successful.

https://sustainablebrands.com/is/darren-beck

Darren will tell of an upcoming event on October 8th, called Mobilizing the Circular Economy.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

This will be a great radio hour!

 

 

“The whole world is one neighborhood.”  Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

On Monday’s show, host Richard Mabion and his co-host Rich Gutowski, are talking with the Sierra Club of both Kansas and Missouri.  Zack Pistora, Lobbyist for Kansas Sierra Club and Billy Davies, Senior Field Organizer for the Missouri Sierra Club will speak about issues concerning our climate and environment.  There are issues on the plate, left over from the 2024 legislative session.  What pending legislation makes good sense for citizens of Kansas and Missouri?

https://www.sierraclub.org/kansas

https://www.sierraclub.org/missouri/thomas-hart-benton

The National Sierra Club has a few ideas for new legislation.  Tune in to learn what they are and educate yourself about them.  When it is time to vote, make your vote more meaningful.  It is important to vote for candidates who are inclined to support your views on protection of our planet.

One thing is certain, we need energy and we need clean energy.  Let’s share ideas about how to make our states healthy, comfortable and affordable for every citizen.  This week’s show is about what’s going on in the environment of your state’s legislature?

 

This will be a great radio hour!

 

“The whole world is one neighborhood.”  Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

On today’s show, we will play the Climate Hour -  Reframing The Climate Conversation Now - produced by Bob Grove.

When was the last time you talked about climate issues with a friend or family member? Studies find that the majority of people are concerned about climate but don’t talk about it. Why has something as universal as the climate conversation become such a political football that it’s a forbidden topic at family holiday gatherings?

In 2002, a prominent republican pollster circulated a strategy guide advising his candidates to talk about “climate change” instead of global warming. His research found that the concept of climate change was less threatening. Global warming was a crisis. Climate change was like taking a ski trip. He effectively created a talking point that de-escalated and delayed climate action for over 20 years.

So words do matter. Words can inspire hope and action. Or they can discourage and silence our voices. How do we find that balance between inspiring hope and addressing the urgency of a situation. How do we reframe the climate conversation?

Join host, Bob Grove, and guests to discuss Reframing the Conversation. Guests include:




Adam Ratner, Director of Conservation Engagement, The Marine Mammal Center
Hannah Phillips, Manager of Docents and Interpreters, Education Department, Saint Louis Zoo
Kait Birghenthal, President & Project Coordinator, National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI)
Dr. Megan Ennes, Assistant Curator of Museum Education and Director of the Thompson Earth Systems Institute, Florida Museum of Natural History

To learn more, visit …

https://MarineMammalCenter.org
https://stlzoo.org
https://NNOCCI.org
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/earth-systems/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6JPDD24

 

This will be a great radio hour!

https://kkfi.org/listen/

“The whole world is one neighborhood.”  Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

On today’s show, host Richard Mabion and his co-host Richard Gutowski will recap the recent hours they have broadcast concerning community connections.  There is no doubt this is an appropriate topic for EcoRadio KC.  After all, what does “ecology” mean?

Ecology is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment; it seeks to understand the vital connections between plants and animals, including humans, and the world around them.

What do neighborhoods mean to us? A neighborhood is an area where people live and interact with one another.  Neighborhoods tend to have their own identity, or "feel" based on the people who live there and the places nearby. Residents may have similar types of families, incomes, and education levels. Neighborhoods can include restaurants, bookstores, and parks. Neighborhoods often have fuzzy geographical boundaries, so sometimes it's difficult to tell where one starts and another ends.

Neighborhood residents generally have similar incomes, as well as similar social characteristics such as education level, housing preference, and sense of public order. Sometimes, the dominant ethnicity in a neighborhood defines its character.

When people band together in this way, it strengthens their sense of community and preserves cultural traditions.

This will be a great radio hour!

“The whole world is one neighborhood.”  Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

On today’s show, we have more of the Aunt Lainie’s Kitchen, a podcast created by Lainie Renee, a volunteer with KKFI.  Food is connection and we are broadcasting during the dinner time - what a perfect fit!

During this hour, host Lainie Renee will interview Amanda West of Let's Dine Local and Erin Erdman of Downtown Liberty Farmer's Market.

Lainie exhibits the kind of interest any food lover will recognize.  She leads a lively discussion on that topic near to our hearts - WHAT’S TO EAT?  Aunt Lainie’s Kitchen talks about places to find food in our area and ways to prepare food to create delightful meals.

Food, and food television, is a comfort for us all.  In a time of increasing stress from climate change, we need comfort!  Let’s celebrate a good thing in life, glorious food.  We’ll talk about it, think about it, learn about it and hopefully translate this information into three meals a day, starting with this dinner, when EcoRadio KC is broadcast.

The perfect recipe for your worries, Aunt Lainie’s Kitchen podcast will tell how to make do with what you have or where to find what you want.   You can find Aunt Lainie’s Kitchen podcast wherever you obtain podcasts.   Soon we’ll be the fed ones! Please listen to learn how.

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

On today’s show, host Richard Mabion and his guest host, Rich Gutowski, speak with Jeffrey Severin, Senior Program Manager for Heartland Environmental Justice Center.

https://heartlandej.org/

Communities are currently dealing with the negative effects of the impacts of global energy increase and pollution. You know what you need to bring transformational change to your community. However, it can be challenging to access the opportunities and resources that make those solutions possible.

The Heartland Environmental Justice Center is a resource that can help. The Center offers free support for grassroots organizations in a five-state area and adjoining tribal nations to help you make your communities safer, healthier, and greener. They are excited to share their thoughts and insights with you on environmental and energy justice topics across our region. They can provide updates and news stories regarding local environmental justice projects, opportunities and events. We hope you find this radio hour informative and helpful.

Please listen to learn how we can work together.

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

On today’s show, host Brent Ragsdale will speak Dr. Jennifer Ifft, Agricultural Economics Department Associate Professor, Flinchbaugh Agricultural Policy Chair at Kansas State University.  She has an integrated research and extension program that covers policy and regulatory issues that affect the viability of U.S. and Kansas agriculture. Her current projects are in the areas of nontraditional finance, crop insurance, farmland markets and farm labor. She has published on how farm programs and regulations are capitalized into farmland values, farmland value determinants and measurement, farm labor and management, and crop insurance and farm debt. She also regularly publishes in the farm press and works with farm sector policymakers and stakeholders.

https://www.ageconomics.k-state.edu/directory/faculty_directory/ifft/index.html

Their topic will be Extreme Heat and Kansas Farm Income.  We are aware that climate crisis is caused by global energy increase.  Increased warming and dramatic weather events have a financial impact on the business of farming.   Moderate or severe drought is prevailing through much of the Cornbelt and many areas of Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska are experiencing extreme drought.

While Kansas farmers are no strangers to adverse weather, extreme heat has been increasing in Kansas over the last few decades. Research shows Kansas farm income is very sensitive to extreme heat. However, both farm practices and crop insurance have partially mitigated the impacts of extreme heat historically.

This will be a great radio hour!

 

https://kkfi.org/listen/

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

On today’s show, we will talk with Jane Fletcher, Administrative Director of After the Harvest.  Like most big ideas, After the Harvest began very small with a few like-minded individuals who believed that hungry people deserve healthy food in Greater Kansas City and that no food should go to waste. Starting out in loaned space in May 2014, they took a leap of faith and began growing the 501(c)(3).

https://aftertheharvestkc.org/

Now, After the Harvest, still small with a full-time staff of less than ten, but with thousands of volunteers - uses a gleaning program which rescues fruits and vegetables left in the field.  After the Harvest gives the fresh healthy food directly to agencies feeding hungry people. After the Harvest is the largest local produce donor to Harvesters – The Community Food Network. Harvesters is their primary distribution partner, delivering the produce obtained using their gleaning and truckload programs to agencies within Harvesters’ service area. This unique partnership gives Harvesters access to fresh-from-the-farm produce that is otherwise unavailable to them and that provides value, variety and quality to their produce distribution program.

After the Harvest’s rescued produce is delivered to more than 360 agencies serving over 35,000 hungry people in our area each week.

This will be a great radio hour!

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

For our hour on July 29th, host Richard Mabion will speak with Jeff Severin, Senior Program Manager with the Heartland Environmental Justice Center.

https://heartlandej.org/

The Heartland Environmental Justice Center is a first-stop resource for communities seeking help with pressing environmental justice and energy equity challenges. They offer no cost, customized support to strengthen communities’ ability to identify challenges, plan and implement solutions, and work towards achieving their community goals. Their support varies in scope and scale depending on community need, from light-touch guidance, like navigating communities to existing resources; medium-touch support, such as preparation for grant applications or facilitating a community needs assessment; or building a project budget; and/or intensive assistance, like policy analysis or technical and engineering expertise.

The Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the American Rescue Plan together represent the largest federal commitment to direct investment and tax incentives to energy security, clean energy, and environmental justice to date.

Communities can offer many benefits, including a sense of belonging, proximity to schools, libraries, shopping centers, and parks that residents can use.  You can grow value in your home.  There can be security for residents of a community. In fact, your involvement with your community achieves results and creates relationships.

This is something every community should work toward.

We can build stronger, more resilient communities.  The ethical responsibility that we have is to find ways of living in the world that benefits all and both recognizes and names injustice, inequality, exploitation, and the causes of environmental devastation.

After a few years exploring Kansas landscapes and waterways as an environmental educator, Jeff Severin spent the next 17 years of his career at The University of Kansas, first managing the campus recycling program, then developing and leading the Center for Sustainability, whose vision included building a community “empowered to protect natural resources, create economic prosperity, and treat all people with equity and respect.” Jeff joined the Environmental Finance Center at Wichita State University in 2021, incorporating principles of environmental justice and inclusion into projects focused on developing the water workforce, reducing exposure to toxins, and addressing household hazardous waste.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

This will be a great radio hour!

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

Food is connection and we are broadcasting during the dinner time, what a perfect fit!

During this hour, host Lainie Renee, a volunteer at KKFI, will interview Troy and Vanessa Apostol of "KCs Kozy Coffee Shops" about their adventures exploring coffee shops and Kate Deacon, the market manager of the Mission Market about the day-to-day intricacies of running a Farmer's Market.

Lainie exhibits the kind of interest any food lover will recognize.  She leads a lively discussion on that topic near to our hearts, what’s to eat?  Aunt Lainie’s Kitchen will talk about places to find food in our area, ways to prepare food to create delightful meals and she plans to feature cooks and chefs to explain how good meals are created.

Food, and food television, is a comfort for us all.  In a time of increasing stress from climate change, we need comfort!  Let’s celebrate a good thing in life, glorious food.  We’ll talk about it, think about it, learn about it and hopefully translate this information into three meals a day, starting with this dinner, when EcoRadio KC is broadcast.

The perfect recipe for your worries, and don’t worry if you cannot afford to go out to buy it, Aunt Lainie’s Kitchen will tell how to make do with what you have and what you can do.  Soon we'll be the fed ones!

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

This will be a great radio hour!

Thanks for listening to EcoRadio KC! We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.

For our hour on July 15th, host Richard Mabion will bring us a panel on neighborhood connections.  His guests are Tamara Barnes, Dina Freeman, Emily Miller and Rich Gutowski. Their topic will be how neighborhood involvement can help create a sustainable lifestyle.  This will be another episode of the Neighborhood Roundtable – we can learn to become a collaborative development unit where each of us lives.

Emily Miller has a Master’s Degree in urban planning with a specialization in environmental and food systems planning. Tamara Barnes is employed by the Unified Government and also operates A Loving Space Foundation.  Dina Newman is Director of The Center for Neighborhoods at UMKC. Rich Gutowski has business acumen with an eye toward protecting our planet.

Right now, these organizations have involvement and results.  Neighborhoods can offer many benefits, including a sense of belonging, proximity to schools, libraries, and shopping centers, amenities like parks, sports courts, swimming pools, and barbecue pits that residents can use.  You can grow value in your home.  There can be security for residents of a neighborhood.

In fact, your involvement with your neighborhood achieves results and creates relationships.  This is something every community should work toward.

The United States has passed the Inflation Reduction Act.  This allows billions of federal dollars to states.  There will likely be a chance in the near future for everyone to participate if we deliver opportunities to everyone.  We can build stronger, more resilient communities.  The ethical responsibility that we have is to find ways of living in the world that benefits all and both recognizes and names injustice, inequality, exploitation, and the causes of environmental devastation.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come.

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. We are supported by listeners who share our mission.  Thanks to everyone who gave during our recent winter fund drive!

EcoRadio KC will play a radio production we broadcast in September 2014, when Mike Murphy and John Fish Kurmann travelled to New York City for the People’s Climate March.  The People's Climate March was a large-scale activist event orchestrated by the People's Climate Movement to advocate global action against climate change, and it happened on Sunday, September 21, 2014, in New York City, along with a series of companion actions worldwide, many of which also took the name People's Climate March. The New York City event had an estimated 311,000 participants, and it is still the largest climate change march in history.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! This will be a great radio hour!

We support the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

IT IS KKFI’s FUND DRIVE!!! We are asking you to support KKFI, YOUR Community Radio Station. We bring you music and vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media.

KKFI is supported by our listeners who share our mission.  Consider becoming a Sustaining Member today. You can promise to give a little or a lot, on a monthly basis billed directly to your credit or debit card.  If you can give as little as $10 monthly, we will thank you with a blazing new KKFI T-shirt that shows the community you are a member of our COMMUNITY.

Today, we will play a radio production created by the University of Kansas Environmental Studies 2024 Capstone group.  In the first part, you will hear from Eddie Church and Maggie Grandsire discuss American consumerism.  They will ask if we are all aware of planned obsolescence, and advertising telling us we need more or that we will be improved by having more.  In the second part of our program, 2024 Capstone students Evren DeQuincy and Madison Wiley will talk about the environmental impacts of our consumption habits. Finally, 2024 Capstone students Callie Roberts and Trevor Tobin-Boyd will examine what each of us can do to improve the situation and become a more conscious consumer.  The Capstone students present their studies in a way that might result in changes to our interaction with this planet.  Please stay tuned in.  The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! This will be a great radio hour!

We support the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

For Feb. 26th, 2024 on EcoRadio KC, IT IS KKFI’s FUND DRIVE!!! We are asking you to support KKFI, YOUR Community Radio Station. We bring you music and vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media.

KKFI is supported by our listeners, local businesses and organizations that share our mission.  Consider becoming a Sustaining Member today. You can promise to give a little or a lot, on a monthly basis billed directly to your credit or debit card.  If you can give as little as $10 monthly, we will thank you with a blazing new KKFI T-shirt that shows the community you are a member of our COMMUNITY.

The volunteers who create EcoRadio KC love creating new and exciting shows for our listeners.  Today, we will play just a few highlights of shows we have broadcast since the last pledge drive.  Richard Mabion, Brent Ragsdale, Craig Lubow, and Terri Wilke create these weekly programs because we care about the environment and we care about our community.  We are optimistic that when we inform listeners about earth issues, our broadcasts might result to change our community interaction with this planet.  Please tune in.  We will play selected parts of shows we have recently broadcast.  We hope what you will hear will encourage you to call or go online and pledge support for our work.  Your sponsorship is what keeps KKFI on the air!

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! This will be a great radio hour!

We support the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

On EcoRadio KC for February 19th, please tune in and listen as host Terri Wilke will speak with Carl Stafford, Founder/Visionary of My Region Wins!   Born and raised on the west side of Kansas City’s 5th District, Carl has worked in and around the Kansas City metro, particularly with the youth, helping hundreds of children unlock their physical, intellectual, and creative potentials in a variety of capacities.

Carl Stafford received bachelor’s degree in multimedia arts from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2006. His original goal for attending art school was to write movie scripts and be a director, however, his creative muse didn’t find this path satisfactory. The 'new found Artist within' was drawn to serving rather than ‘entertaining’ the masses.

Carl Stafford has an understanding that the need for structural change that starts within the most basic communities: the neighborhoods, is most important.

Since its founding, MY REGION WINS! (MRW!) has dedicated itself to empowering the neighborhoods of Kansas City towards self-sufficiency, natural stewardship, with grassroots pushes for socioeconomic change. The vision for Kansas City, Missouri is one that works for all, and emphasizes artistic advancement and environmental consciousness. The mission to have a sustainable cultural future for Kansas City and the world.

https://myregionwins.org/

It is time for the Go Green Campaign to be heard on the radio!

https://myregionwins.org/green-campaign

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! This will be a great radio hour!

We support the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

 

On EcoRadio KC for February 12th, please tune in and listen to host Richard Mabion speak with Zack Pistora, State Lobbyist for the Kansas Sierra Club.

The Kansas Legislature is in session and on the table are issues of vital importance to the protection of our ecology.  Zack will inform us of the latest from Topeka.  The presentation will include discussion of legislation to prohibit single plastic bag bans, confined animal feed operations (CAFO) legislation on manure disposal, prohibition of Homeowners Association (HOA) bans on rooftop solar, steps to protect the Ornate Box Turtle, and other current legislation.

The purpose of environmental law is to protect human health and to preserve the environment for present and future generations. During any legislative session in Congress or in a state, legislation is proposed that is not clearly labeled “environmental”.   Kansas is lucky to have a Lobbyist who represents Sierra Club members’ interest in having all laws act to ensure sustainable development.  In Kansas, we view legislation under the lens of the Earth’s microscope.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! This will be a great radio hour!

We support the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

On EcoRadio KC, please tune in and listen to the most recent Climate Hour produced by Bob Grove - How to Make Higher Education Work for Climate Change - with his guests

Sarah Johnson, Founder, Wild Rose Education, Shannon O’Lear, Professor of Geography and Director of the Environmental Studies Program, Kansas University and Shari L. Wilson, Founder and Teaching Ecologist at Project Central

To learn more, visit …

https://www.wildroseeducation.com/

https://geog.ku.edu/

https://www.projcentral.co/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6JPDD24

How do we prepare our college and university graduates to understand, survive and even prosper in this age of climate change? Some of this is expanding science degrees to address climate-related issues. But most of it is incorporating climate-related issues into ALL subjects; cross-cutting education to address the climate change we’re experiencing today and the climate reality that our graduates will face tomorrow.

The United Nations is calling for climate change studies to be a formal part of all curriculums in ALL schools by 2025. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has launched a project to reorient chemistry education globally toward sustainability. Climate Change is becoming core curriculum around the world.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! This will be a great radio hour!

We support the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

On EcoRadio KC, host Brent Ragsdale will speak with Douglas County Kansas Commissioner Karen Willey about agrivoltaics.  Brent Ragsdale is a Mechanical Engineer who aspires to help address Earth’s ecological crisis and to minimize humanity’s biophysical impacts through energy transition and using less resources in general. He and his wife Patti live in a passive house type home they built on a small farm near Tonganoxie KS where they run a non-profit called Botanical Belonging which shares the love of local native plants with the greater Kansas City community. Karen Willey earned a BA in Environmental Studies and a PhD in Geography.  During the past 29 years, Karen has served as a volunteer on more than a dozen community boards including the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission.

Industrial solar is in the news.  According the USDA, agrivoltaics is the use of land for agriculture and solar power generation.  We can treat them as complements to the other instead of as competitors. By allowing working lands to stay working, agrivoltaic systems could help farms diversify income.

Brent will provide a report from the first Solar Farm Summit which happened in Chicago in March, 2023.  The 2024 Solar Farm Summit will happen, again in Chicago in July 2024.

https://solarfarmsummit.com/

Brent will share trends in solar PV (photovoltaics) within the context of the great energy transition. Brent has been very impressed by Jack’s Solar Garden in Colorado.

https://www.jackssolargarden.com/

Rest assured we will have more EcoRadio KC programs about the solar future.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! This will be a great radio hour!

We support the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

This will be a great radio hour!  https://kkfi.org/listen/

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

On EcoRadio KC, host Terri Wilke will speak with Matt Riggs, Planner II in the Solid Waste Management Dept. at Mid America Regional Council (MARC).

Food loss and waste hurts us all. Our community, economy and the environment all suffer as over 30 percent of all food in the United States goes to waste every year. The goal of MARC’s food loss and waste (FLW) workshop series is to develop strategic action steps necessary to move the Kansas City region forward on FLW reduction. These action steps will form the core of a regional Food Waste Action Plan. Because of the role your business or organization plays in the region's food system, MARC needs your voice at the table. Terri and Matt will tell listeners all the details.

The KC Foodwise Project addresses food waste and sustainable food systems in KC Metro area.  There are many great opportunities for you to help build a sustainable food system in the Kansas City region. We will provide the latest news, event listings, and volunteer and job opportunities right here.

EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! This will be a great radio hour!

We support the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

On EcoRadio KC, host Richard Mabion and his co-host Rich Gutowski will speak with their guests, Dianna Bryant, MARC Solid Waste Management District Program Manager and Mark Hillenbrand, Founder of Hedge Gate Hill.

https://www.marc.org/

https://hedgegatehill.com/

What day is better than the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. to begin such a conversation?  Afterall, the words and deeds of Martin Luther King, Jr. continue to inspire us. His call for justice and equality has changed the world, and this extends to a commitment to fight climate change. We celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. not only for his leadership in the civil rights movement, but also for his unwavering dedication to a just cause and we have one - climate justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” In today’s world, this statement is the call for a just transition to a sustainable planet Earth. We are going to use this day to commit ourselves to taking action.

Richard Mabion will speak about the community-based concern for an independent Pathway Out of Poverty. MARC has chosen to pursue the Community Owned Waste Exchange, a beginning step to put the low-income portion of the population into a Pathway Out of Poverty program. Mark Hillenbrand will show us how to find volunteers as teachers needed to train those who could become paid instructors in the program.  Rich Gutowski will address the long range of employment possibilities.

This is about efforts to keep recyclables out of landfills by turning them into income-producing products.

EcoRadio KC supports the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

 

We are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! This will be a great radio hour!

EcoRadio KC supports the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

We are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

On EcoRadio KC, host Brent Ragsdale Brent Ragsdale will speak with Ben Postlethwait, Kansas State Director of The Nature Conservancy.  The Nature Conservancy is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US. The Nature Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded in 1951 with a focus in environmental conservation.  The Kansas Chapter of the Nature Conservancy was formed in 1989.

https://www.nature.org/en-us/

Ben Postlethwait, a former Evergy employee, has been Kansas State Director since June of 2023.   He has two decades of experience in the electric utility industry and a background in biology.

As State Director, Ben will lead a team of experts and support staff focused on lasting and large-scale land, water and biodiversity conservation statewide. He would like to ensure we and our children have the opportunity to experience and understand Kansas’s great natural resources.

Postlethwait joins the team as it works toward its new five-year strategic plan. He and his staff will work to protect high-priority prairies and streams, promote regenerative agricultural practices, advance renewable energy development while protecting ecologically sensitive areas, and engage partners, supporters and others in the work.

EcoRadio KC supports the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

We are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

On EcoRadio KC, host Terri Wilke will speak with Timmon Wallis, Co-Founder and Executive Director of NuclearBan.US. He holds a PhD in Peace Studies from Bradford University.  He has served as executive director of Nonviolent Peaceforce, he has directed peace-building projects across the planet, he has served as editor of Peace News, as director of the National Peace Council (UK), as international secretary of Peace Brigades International, as training manager for International Alert, and as program manager for Quakers in Britain.  He was the founder and director of Peaceworkers UK.

He is an author.  His book, Disarming the Nuclear Argument: The Truth About Nuclear Weapons analyzes the cost, accident risk, and legality of nuclear weapons.

https://www.luath.co.uk/politics-and-current-issues/disarming-the-nuclear-argument-the-truth-about-nuclear-weapons#:~:text=Timmon%20Milne%20Wallis%20explores%20the,real%20truth%20about%20these%20weapons.

It looks at the absurdity of the whole concept of perpetuating nuclear weapons as “deterrence.”  The book played a role in the successful July 2017 United Nations negotiations for a Nuclear Ban Treaty, and it is a handbook for those seeking a safer, saner world. His new book, Warheads to Windmills: Preventing Climate Catastrophe and Nuclear War is the essential manual for all climate and disarmament activists!

https://bookshop.org/p/books/warheads-to-windmills-preventing-climate-catastrophe-and-nuclear-war-timmon-wallis/20909115?ean=9798218319540

Terri and Timmon will talk about nuclear energy - its past, how we are using it, and ultimately, whether it has a future on a planet that wants a future?

To survive the climate crisis, we need money, brainpower and infrastructure for the most effective climate solutions. Those resources are currently being squandered by the nuclear weapons industry. We’ll also need the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters to stop pointing nuclear missiles at each other and start building unprecedented global cooperation. Can we convert assets from nuclear weapons of mass extinction to evidence-based climate solutions?

EcoRadio KC supports the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come. We are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

On EcoRadio KC, Richard Mabion and his co-host, Rich Gutowski, will discuss end of year eco-generation concerns with Karan Gupta. Karan comes from a background in the utility industry and a decade of experience in on-site and off-site construction. As principal at Elemental Consulting, based in Kansas City, KS, he specializes in new buildings, retrofits, prefabrication and manufacturing, AND community development.

Eco-generation concerns -what does that mean?

The prefix “eco” refers to ecology or to the environment.  Ecology is the branch of biology that deals with the relations of life to each another and to their physical surroundings.  That study includes the life form’s population, community or ecosystem, and biosphere of the life. An ecosystem is the way life interacts with other life and where there is community, that is defined by a group with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society.  Our biosphere is the Earth.

We are constantly examining our ability to live and relate to each other in a way that can continue for generations.  We look back to see how generations have come this far and we look forward with a willingness to change and develop new systems, particularly in the areas of power generation.  Renewable sources of electricity to power transportation, comfort levels in our homes, communication and the extra brain power provided by computers is what provides for our future.

EcoRadio KC supports the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

We are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”    Margaret Mead

EcoRadio KC recorded a panel discussion, Perennial Agriculture with The Land Institute, on Oct. 14, 2023 at the Lawrence Public Library.  Kernza is a perennial wheat grain showing promise as a viable food crop that requires less tillage.

Staff of The Land Institute presented on local and global research in perennial agriculture.  We open our recording of the panel with Amy June Breesman, Land Relations Specialist, who then introduced Laura Kemp, Perennial Agriculture Project, Field Station Manager, followed by Sajal Sthapit, Postdoctoral Researcher, Kernza®, Intermediate Wheatgrass all at The Land Institute.  They and other panelists present on local and global research in perennial agriculture, featuring the latest on Kernza® perennial grain and more.

https://landinstitute.org/our-work/perennial-crops/kernza/

Please remember, you can play and replay this presentation on our podcast of this episode.

EcoRadio KC supports the work of the Land Institute for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. Achieving this future requires reconciling the human economy with nature’s economy, and we believe focusing on food and how we produce it is a transformative first step. In this future, agriculture regenerates the soil, water, and air upon which all life depends.  

We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!  https://kkfi.org/listen/

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

Host Brent Ragsdale visits the University of Kansas' Department of Geography and Atmospheric Science to interview Assistant Teaching Professor Dr. Qinjian Jin about his contributions to the recent paper by Dr. James Hansen and colleagues titled Global Warming in the Pipeline.  According to Dr. Hansen, Dr. Jin's expertise in aerosol-climate interactions specifically related to shipping emissions and his calculations of the geographical distribution of the sulfate aerosols of the shipping industry was one of the key inputs in the scientific story presented in the Pipeline paper.

Brent also visits with Dr. David Rahn, Associate Professor and the Department's Director of Graduate Studies about the undergraduate and graduate program in Atmospheric Science at KU.  This will be a great hour full of vital information for our planet.

Links:

Global Warming in the Pipeline paper

https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889?searchresult=1&login=false

Dr. Hansen's website

https://www1.columbia.edu/~jeh1/

About Assistant Teaching Professor Dr. Qinjian Jin

https://geog.ku.edu/people/qinjian-jin

About Associate Professor and the Department's Director of Graduate Studies Dr. David Rahn

https://geog.ku.edu/people/david-rahn

We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!  https://kkfi.org/listen/

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On EcoRadio KC host Terri Wilke will speak with her guest Rebecca Harrell Tickell, Director of the documentary Common Ground which is showing in the Kansas City area.  Rebecca and her husband, Josh Tickell, are founders of Big Picture Ranch, their film production company located in Ojai, California.  Big Picture Ranch creates content that changes the global narrative around important environmental issues. Filmmakers Josh and Rebecca Tickell won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival with their first film FUEL, premiered their oil spill documentary THE BIG FIX as an official selection at Cannes, and are launching their first scripted feature film, HEARTLAND soon.  They created the recent global Netflix hit, Kiss the Ground.

Today, Rebecca and Josh live with their two children on a working ranch near Santa Barbara. They are committed to lives of optimal health for themselves, their children, and the planet.

https://www.bigpictureranch.com/about

COMMON GROUND explores how many of the problems that ail humans - from cancer to climate change - may be connected to the state of the world's soil. Independent farmers who've changed their techniques to match the methods used by Indigenous populations in centuries past demonstrate how people can potentially save the planet just by changing how we grow food. There were special panel events recently when Common Ground had its Kansas City opening.  Part of the genius of the film Common Ground is that it entertains the viewer as s/he watches an interesting story unfold while the film establishes the need to change farming methods based on fact.

https://commongroundfilm.org/

In the second part of the hour, Terri will speak with Ray Archuleta, a soil scientist featured in Common Ground.  Ray Archuleta is a Certified Professional Soil Scientist with the Soil Science Society of America and he worked over 30 years as a Soil Conservationist, Water Quality Specialist, and Conservation Agronomist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). After his retirement from the NRCS, Ray founded Soil Health Academy, LLC, to teach Agroecology principles for improving soil function on a national scale. Ray also owns and operates a family farm near Seymour, Missouri.

https://soilhealthacademy.org/team/ray-archuleta/

The premise of Common Ground is that there are three parts to soil regeneration, first, no tillage, second, use of cover crops and finally no use of pesticides.  In the final part of our hour, Terri will talk with Carey Gillam, an investigative journalist, researcher and writer with more than 25 years’ experience in the news industry.  Carey is the author of Whitewash (2017) and the Monsanto Papers (2021).  She is featured in the film Common Ground to build the case that we farm using chemicals that injure the soil and its life, including our own, because most corporate America is more interested in creating profit rather than doing the right thing - foster farms which nourish life.

https://careygillam.com/

Glenwood Arts Theater in Overland Park, Kansas has added showings of the film, Common Ground, through December 7, 2023.

https://fineartsgroup.com/

We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!  https://kkfi.org/listen/

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

Host Richard Mabion and his co-host, Rich Gutowski, will speak with their guest, Zack Pistora, Lobbyist for the Kansas Sierra Club.  We will learn more about the future of solar energy to provide electricity in Kansas.  The Kansas Legislature has 3 solar-related bills that are being followed by the Sierra Club.  The Legislature’s committee on energy and utilities has met in preparation for start of the 2024 session in January. In addition to industry and regulatory witnesses, the committee considered eminent domain in context of transmission.

The Kansas Sierra Club is in support of large-scale transmission infrastructure and responsibly sited renewable power plants but opposed to projects in which the environment is unnecessarily destroyed or developers take advantage of communities.  The Sierra Club’s view is that transmission can be done in a way that benefits all customers, public health, the environment and the Kansas economy. It believes eminent domain should be a tool of last resort and that Kansas has to upgrade electricity transmission to make better use of low-cost energy sources but that decisions about transmission investments in Kansas require open public dialogue and community planning.  Environmental justice must be considered and impacts on local diverse communities must be understood and mitigated to ensure fair treatment.

We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

On EcoRadio KC, Marty Kraft joins host Terri Wilke.  Marty Kraft is a local man who has worked as a Gardener, Environmental Educator, and Helper at Self for many years.

Listeners may recall the last time Marty was on EcoRadio KC, host Brent Ragsdale and Marty worked to create biochar.  Biochar is the lightweight black residue, made of carbon and ashes, remaining after the oxygen-limited burning of biomass which results in a form of charcoal. While Marty Kraft still makes and uses biochar for the gardens in which he works, he is now more involved with the making of Johnson-Su microbial community growth centers (special compost).

What is the Johnson-Su composting method? The Johnson-Su bioreactor is a new composting system developed that can achieve a much higher fungal to bacterial ratio compost with a very diverse microbe population. It is a no turn composting procedure that has a short thermal phase, followed by a worm composting phase.

Marty is building the growth centers in gardens all around the city and he will be on our program tonight to explain the ease of the installation and the outstanding positive impact of the compost on gardens.

We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

 

A Purification by Wendell Berry

At the start of spring I open a trench

in the ground. I put into it

the winter’s accumulation of paper,

pages I do not want to read

again, useless words, fragments,

errors. And I put into it

the contents of the outhouse:

light of the sun, growth of the ground,

finished with one of their journeys.

To the sky, to the wind, then,

and to the faithful trees, I confess

my sins: that I have not been happy

enough, considering my good luck;

have listened to too much noise;

have been inattentive to wonders;

have lusted after praise.

And then upon the gathered refuse

of mind and body, I close the trench,

folding shut again the dark,

the deathless earth. Beneath that seal

the old escapes into the new.

We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!  https://kkfi.org/listen/

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

Oceans cover 70% of our planet’s surface. Oceans absorb 90% of the heat from global warming. They absorb 30% of the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels. Oceans drive our planet’s weather and oceans feed much of the world. Ocean warming threatens the survival of the world’s largest ecosystem. The importance of oceans cannot be over stressed. As go the oceans, so goes civilization.

Join Climate Hour host, Bob Grove, and Dr. Greg Asner, Director of the Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science, Arizona State University and the Founder of Asner Labs, to discuss ocean warming and the survival of the world’s largest ecosystem.

Dr. Asner is an ecologist recognized for his applied research on ecosystems and climate change. He serves on ASU’s faculty of the School of Ocean Futures and in numerous programs with NASA, the U.S. State Department, and the United Nations. He’s a recipient of multiple scientific and sustainability awards and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. His research spans the areas of ecology, biodiversity, coral reefs, terrestrial carbon cycle, animal-habitat interactions and climate change. Dr. Greg Asner is the Principal Investigator for Asner Labs.

https://climategkc.org/climate-hour/

DR GREG ASNER

https://globalfutures.asu.edu/gdcs/

https://asnerlab.org/

BOB GROVE

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6JPDD24

View other Climate Hour episodes at https://climategkc.org/climate-hour/

We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”  Margaret Mead

Nadia Steinzor joins host Craig Lubow to discuss "The Aluminum Paradox", a book written about the environmental hazards of manufacturing aluminum.  Aluminum Paradox also provides recommendations for alternatives and alternative methods of production.  Aluminum is a key component in solar panels, wind turbines, more efficient cars and planes and more.  Nadia is from the Environmental Integrity Project.

Of note to Missouri listeners--the Magnitude 7 Metals facility in Marston has had several water and air pollution violations since 2018.

Host Richard Mabion and Rich Gutowski will speak with their guests, Jeff Severin and Mark Hillenbrand.  Jeff Severin was on EcoRadio KC a few months ago in September of 2023.  He is presently Sr. Program Manager for the Heartland Environmental Justice Center, which is part of the Environmental Finance Center at Wichita State University. The Heartland Environmental Justice Center helps individuals, organizations, and institutions support underserved and disadvantaged communities in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and adjoining Indigenous nations capitalize on their capacity to make meaningful advances towards environmental and energy equity.

https://heartlandej.org/

Mark Hillenbrand was on our program a few weeks ago on October 16, 2023.  He is Founder of Hedge Gate Hill. Hedge Gate Hill was created to leverage the years of experience in nonprofit, for-profit and governmental organizations of Mark Hillenbrand.

https://hedgegatehill.com/

Each of those shows laid the foundation for the program we bring you today.  The idea is that we can learn how to create jobs and provide training for skilled labor jobs so that work can be done to protect us from the onslaught of climate disruption.  Let’s make healthier lives in neighborhoods that can use environmental justice.  EPA has selected 16 Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers (EJ TCTACs) in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy that will receive $177 million to help underserved and overburdened communities across the country. Each of the technical assistance centers will receive at least $10 million to remove barriers and improve accessibility for communities with environmental justice concerns.

EPA has selected 16 EJ TCTACs in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy that will receive $177 million to help underserved and overburdened communities across the country. Each of the technical assistance centers will receive at least $10 million to remove barriers and improve accessibility for communities with environmental justice concerns. With this critical investment, these centers will provide training and other assistance to build capacity for navigating federal grant application systems, writing strong grant proposals, and effectively managing grant funding. In addition, these centers will provide guidance on community engagement, meeting facilitation, and translation and interpretation services for limited English-speaking participants, thus removing barriers and improving accessibility for communities with environmental justice concerns. Each of the technical assistance centers will also create and manage communication channels to ensure all communities have direct access to resources and information.

https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/environmental-justice-thriving-communities-technical-assistance-centers

We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”  Margaret Mead

On our show for October 23rd, host Terri Wilke speaks with Tony Mendoza, Senior Attorney with the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program. He is based in California.

Tony Mendoza is the Sierra Club’s senior attorney who advocates for clean energy in the central United States. Tony received his BA and JD from Yale University. Before joining Sierra Club, Tony worked at a law firm in Washington, D.C. Tony grew up in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. He enjoys fly fishing for wild trout and salmon, bird watching, and playing soccer.

Tony Mendoza addressed the KCMO Environmental Management Commission on July 12, 2023.  The KCMO Environmental Management Commission’s goal to is promote environmental awareness and resource efficiency to the City's elected leaders and staff, to assist the progress of Kansas City toward sustainability.

Tony Mendoza’s topic to the KCMO Environmental Management Commission was the Inflation Reduction Act:  Opportunities for Local Governments.

The President’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 makes the single largest investment in climate and energy in American history, enabling America to tackle the climate crisis, advancing environmental justice, securing America’s position as a world leader in domestic clean energy manufacturing, and putting the United States on a pathway to achieving the Biden-Harris Administration’s climate goals, including a net-zero economy by 2050.

The White House has put out publication on this Act:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/cleanenergy/inflation-reduction-act-guidebook/

All we know, there is an urgent need to change the status quo.  We can protect the planet so that life can continue to thrive on earth.  We also know we pay a lot of tax dollars to the federal government.  This is why learning about the Inflation Reduction Act can be so gratifying – through the effective use of our tax dollars, we can improve living conditions for us.

We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.  Let’s learn how this IRA works for our communities!

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for October 16th, host Richard Mabion and Rich Gutowski speak with Mark Hillenbrand, Founder of Hedge Gate Hill. Hedge Gate Hill was created to leverage the years of experience in nonprofit, for-profit and governmental organizations of Mark Hillenbrand. Mark brings a unique blend of skills and techniques from his experience working and leading non-profit, for-profit and governmental organizations. His ability to understand and guide organizational strategic planning and operational management is strengthened by his experience of establishing and operating a successful US for-profit business, working for US non-profit agencies and leading a Canadian governmental professional regulation organization.

Mark’s diverse experience, having lived and worked in various local, regional, national and international settings, strengthens Hedge Gate Hill’s ability to support organizations in developing and maintaining diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplaces. Mark brings his extensive experience in quality assurance engineering and advanced education and training in mental and emotional health to organizational strategic planning, management and improvement.

Organizational success is an outcome of efficiently executed day-to-day activities and effective strategic planning. Hedge Gate Hill’s best practice strategic planning processes include the use of qualitative and quantitative research techniques to obtain thorough data the current situation and vision of the future. Leadership development is the result of individually tailored interactions to enhance core strengths and competencies to support growth in identified areas of development and opportunity. Hedge Gate Hill’s leadership development services are focused on assessing and enhancing leadership ability in developing an inclusive culture and effectively leading teams through change. Hedge Gate Hill facilitates organizational development through application of theories from quality assurance engineering, psychology and social work as well as the diligent use of the scientific method.  Successful organizational development connects human emotion, inspiration and motivation to values-based actions and processes. Organizational effectiveness is achieved through first rate strategic leadership, well developed and deployed staff, clearly defined work processes, effective use of resources and the intentional engagement of internal and external stakeholders. Hedge Gate Hill provides consulting services that bring the many components of an organization together with objective data driving strategic change to achieve organizational excellence.

We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for October 9th, it’s time for the KKFI Pledge Drive!  Let's come together to support the beauty of community radio.  EcoRadio KC is a weekly locally created hour intended to inspire action towards protecting our planet. There is a need to raise awareness and foster sustainable choices that assure environmental justice.

What you can do is call us at 888-931-0901 and make a pledge of your support.  There are options.  You can call and provide a credit card number; you can call and offer to mail a check.  You can pay one time or you can set up a monthly pay promise.  We call that sustained giving – for as little as a dollar a day, in a day or a month, your donation will grow!  Think of the ways you spend a dollar a day and call to pledge that dollar in support of the benefit of the KKFI 24 hour a day, seven day a week programming of information, entertainment and enlightenment.  We only exist because of you.  You can go online, securely to kkfi.org and click the donate button.  If you prefer, we have a Facebook fundraiser option on the KKFI Facebook page.

For the pledge drive, we are bringing a very special show.  Host Terri Wilke speaks with her guest, Dave Mitchell.  Dave is a native of Columbia, Mo., and he has resided in Kansas City, MO. since 1988.  A great deal has been done to move humanity towards a truly sustainable path, but many more mountains must be moved.  Dave Mitchell has been involved in environmental activism here in Kansas City for many 20 years, and many listeners will recognize that he has been a regular contributor to KKFI.  In hope for an ever widening and growing environmental movement, Terri and Dave Mitchell will discuss the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant action Congress has taken on clean energy and climate change in the nation’s history.

We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe for human habitation for millennia to come.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for October 2nd, host Brent Ragsdale speaks with his guest, John Peach.  John Peach is an applied mathematician who spent two decades in a research position at MIT working on problems at the intersection of math and physics. He earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering, and was employed by a national retail company to implement energy saving systems before returning to graduate school.  He later realized that he was not saving as much energy as he thought because the company was using the money saved to build more stores. Now retired, he and a colleague, Jan De Wilde, started a blog, Wild Peaches. Check it :

https://wildpeaches.xyz/

Wild Peaches offers mind-sized STEM ideas and experiments, beyond the textbook.

Brent and John Peach will discuss peak oil.  The oil age may be coming to a close much sooner than most people realize, and there is a growing gap between expectations and the thermodynamic reality of renewable energy.

How much oil remains for the world to produce depends on how much oil has been discovered, how much more we might expect to be discovered, and how much we’ve already used. John Peach has a YouTube video on the topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0WMk7WpI0k

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

On our show for September 25th, host Terri Wilke speaks with her guests, Michael Almon and Mike Wasikowski.

Electric vehicle shows are happening because of National Drive Electric Week, Sept. 22 – Oct. 1, 2023, a nationwide celebration to raise awareness of the many benefits of all-electric and plug-in hybrid cars, trucks, motorcycles, and more. Are you considering going electric?

Michael Almon is an electric car owner and member of the Board of Directors of the Sustainability Action Network.  He has been instrumental in bringing electric car shows to his community of Lawrence, Kansas.

Mike Wasikowski is an electric car owner and he is a member of the City of Lawrence’s Public Transit Advisory Committee.  He will talk about the importance of putting electric buses to use in any city.

The time for the annual EV show in Lawrence KS, is Sunday, October 1st, 11 AM to 3 PM at South Park on Massachusetts ST in downtown Lawrence.

There will be opportunities available for everyone to see, touch, talk about and maybe even drive an electric vehicle, from buses to bikes.

The Panasonic Battery Plant in nearby DeSoto, KS is under construction.  Research shows green energy projects are on the upswing in Kansas but that Kansas is one of the states with the lowest numbers of consumer sales of electric vehicles.  Colorado is adopting green energy at a much faster rate.  Missouri is adopting green energy at twice the rate of Kansas.

The Panasonic Plant expects to be producing batteries for electric vehicles by early 2025.  There are hiring projections of about 200 employees per month throughout 2024 for jobs that pay better than $20 per hour and which require 12-hour shifts.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for September 18th, host Richard Mabion speaks with Jeffrey Severin, presently Sr. Program Manager for the Heartland Environmental Justice Center, which is part of the Environmental Finance Center at Wichita State University. He worked a long stint as Director of the Center for Sustainability at the University of Kansas, and as an environmental educator before that.  His work takes him throughout the Midwest.

The Heartland Environmental Justice Center helps individuals, organizations, and institutions support underserved and disadvantaged communities in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and adjoining Indigenous nations capitalize on their capacity to make meaningful advances towards environmental and energy equity at the local, state, regional, and federal levels. The Center helps communities develop their ability to participate in environmental justice and energy justice decision-making, find and apply for grants, and engage with the private sector to be part of energy and infrastructure project design and development.

https://heartlandej.org/#:~:text=The%20Heartland%20Environmental%20Justice%20Center,towards%20environmental%20and%20energy%20equity.

Jeff’s interest in the connections that exist between human and natural systems is reflected throughout his career as an informal educator and sustainability professional. His experience spans watershed education, waste reduction, energy conservation, multimodal transportation, landscape restoration, community wellness, food insecurity and diversity, equity and inclusion. He has coordinated strategic planning and project implementation to address a range of environmental and social challenges.   As Richard and Jeff discuss the Heartland Environmental Justice Center, their topics will be wide ranging - not only as to issue - energy, pollution, protection of our environment and the sustainability of our lives - but wide ranging with respect to geography.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for September 4th, host Terri Wilke speaks with Margaret and Thad Kramar, owners of Hidden Hollow Farm, a local organic food producer.  Both are environmental activists.  Not only do they talk the talk, but they walk the talk and are glad to share their knowledge with others who want to walk on a less impacted planet.

The topic for today’s show is plastic bag ordinance.  Listeners, both consumers and retailers, might be wondering how to live without using plastic bags to carry purchases?   On EcoRadio KC, we want to educate and advocate for a more equitable, eco-friendly, and resilient lifestyle. Environmentally friendly decisions to "reduce, reuse and recycle” can help us all save money, time and resources so that we can enjoy life more fully.

You can not only shop and buy what you like, you will learn ways that end shoppers’ remorse about the damage of those ubiquitous plastic bags. Everyone understands that single use plastics are detrimental because our streams and landscapes are littered with them.  Research has indicated that the majority of people support plastic bag bans.  Whether you live in an area that has enacted a single use plastic bag ban or not, you can quit using trash to carry your goods.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for August 28st, host Richard Mabion will again speak with Zack Pistora, Lobbyist for the Kansas Sierra Club. Richard and Zack began this episode last week and there was no way they could discuss all the environmental issues in one hour!  Kansas is poised to benefit big-time from the billions of dollars Congress allocated for upgrading American infrastructure with the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment Act.  But is there any movement in Kansas to apply for those dollars?  The Kansas Legislature has finished their sessions for 2023 and will not meet again until January 8, 2024.  Zack will provide listeners with an overview of what was passed, what died and what is pending with respect to environmental issues.  Kansas is poised to benefit big-time from the billions of dollars Congress allocated for upgrading American infrastructure with the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment Act.  But is there any movement in Kansas to apply for those dollars?  The Kansas Legislature has finished their sessions for 2023 and will not meet again until January 8, 2024.  Zack will provide listeners with an overview of what was passed, what died and what is pending with respect to environmental issues.

This fall is an election and listeners can learn facts to help them decide how their vote can be most effective to improve the climate environment.  Where do Kansas Legislators stand on utility company proposed rate hikes?  Why does our electric utility company continue to use outdated and polluting power plants?

As usual, we have too much to talk about in a short hour.  We want to educate community leaders and advocate for maximizing investment in statewide programs to protect water, save energy and make the state more equitable, eco-friendly, and resilient. Homeowners could benefit from fewer lead pipes, better access to high-speed internet, modern appliances and energy-efficient improvements, rooftop solar, and electric vehicles.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”  Margaret Mead

On our show for August 21st, host Richard Mabion will speak with Zack Pistora, Lobbyist for the Kansas Sierra Club. Kansas is poised to benefit big-time from the billions of dollars Congress allocated for upgrading American infrastructure with the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment Act.  But is there any movement in Kansas to apply for those dollars?  The Kansas Legislature has finished their sessions for 2023 and will not meet again until January 8, 2024.  Zack will provide listeners with an overview of what was passed, what died and what is pending with respect to environmental issues.

This fall is an election and listeners can learn facts to help them decide how their vote can be most effective to improve the climate environment.  Where do Kansas Legislators stand on utility company proposed rate hikes?

As usual, we have too much to talk about in a short hour.  We want to educate community leaders and advocate for maximizing investment in statewide programs to protect water, save energy and make the state more equitable, eco-friendly, and resilient. Homeowners could benefit from fewer lead pipes, better access to high-speed internet, modern appliances and energy-efficient improvements, rooftop solar, and electric vehicles.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for August 14th, host Terri Wilke will speak with Patti Ragsdale, owner, along with her husband and EcoRadio Host, Brent Ragsdale, of Happy Apple’s Farm; which in 2022, became a new endeavor called Botanical Belonging. That is a non-profit that aims to familiarize people in our community with the native plants of our region. They encourage and enable hands-on interaction with the plants through both propagation and cultivation, both in other gardens and in their gardens at Happy Apple’s Farm.

Botanical Belonging is a business focused on sharing what Patti has learned about native plants and helping others include them in gardens. They specialize in providing access to a wide variety of species so people can expand their knowledge about the native plants of our region. They are willing to spend time with customers and understand where they are in their native plant journey.

This feeling of comfortable familiarity with the natural world is a tremendous gift that opens up an active reciprocal relationship. By observing and attempting to nurture native plants in the world around us, we learn. The plants teach us about themselves and about the land. They tell us about history and enable us to see it unfolding. We become familiar.



 

Botanical Belongings is proud to help others enjoy the learning process and develop a long and loving relationship with the land they tend, the plants that grow there, and the wildlife they support.  Patti believes that everyone seeking to plant native plants wants to help the world in some way. Whether they know why milkweed is important or just know it’s one of the plants in the pollinator garden plan they downloaded from a website, native plant people are trying to do something good.

https://botanicalbelonging.org/

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

Please tune in!  https://kkfi.org/listen/

Today on EcoRadio KC, host Richard Mabion and Rich Gutowski will speak with Karan Gupta, who is principal at Elemental Consulting, based in Kansas City, KS.  Karan comes from a background in the utility industry and a decade of experience in on-site and off-site construction.

He specializes in new buildings, retrofits, prefabrication and manufacturing, and community development. He is a Certified Passive House Consultant, LEED GA, EcoDistricts AP, and CNU-Accredited.

Karan has a BA in Economics from New York University and Master’s Degrees in Environmental Management and Forestry from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.

This discussion will educate listeners about the need to build and maintain living accommodations in our low income neighborhoods and how easy this is to do.  They will encourage us all to GET STARTED!

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

On our show for July 31st, host Richard Mabion will speak with Kent Rowe and Jennifer Connelly.  Kent is an Executive Committee member of the Kansas Chapter of Sierra Club, State Energy Chair, and Conservation Chair of the Wichita Chapter. He is a co-founder of Society of Alternative Resources which was instrumental in garnering an Executive Proclamation establishing City of Wichita's Sustainability Integration Board.

Kent is a frequent writer for the Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club Waypoints publication and lectures to groups in topics on sustainability, renewable energy, and microgrid electrification.

The growth of solar in the United States provides a tremendous opportunity to address some of the greatest challenges faced by lower-income communities: the high cost of housing, unemployment, and pollution.  At this time, we cannot fail to calculate the need for all citizens to have shelter which protects from ravages of record-breaking temperatures.  Solar can provide long-term financial relief to families struggling with high and unpredictable energy costs.  Solar can provide living-wage jobs in an industry where the workforce has increased 168% over the past seven years, and solar can provide a source of clean, local energy sited in communities that have been disproportionately impacted by traditional power generation.

This discussion will educate listeners about how easy this is to do and encourage us all to GET STARTED!

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for July 24th, we will play the recording from a presentation by local Ecologists Courtney Masterson and Frank Norman on the topic of how you can restore a bit of native prairie to your own backyard.

Courtney Masterson is Executive Director of Native Lands Restoration Collaborative, “a charitable organization that empowers diverse land stewards to protect and restore resilient native ecosystems through community education”. Frank Norman owns Norman Ecological Consulting LLC, which helps individuals and companies with ecological restoration, rare plant surveys and more.

https://www.nativelandsks.org/

https://www.facebook.com/normanecological/

This discussion will educate listeners about how to help native pollinators and wildlife; add self-sustaining beauty to landscaping; sequester carbon and more - all good things for homeowner value and sustainable living on our planet.

When your home or business is located on the prairie, conditions already exist to grow prairie landscape.  Ask yourself, do you want to spend all your time and income watering and mowing a lawn or would you rather support plants and wildlife in beautiful abundance?  The maintenance advantages alone are significant.  If you can give up just one corner of your lawn and grow a few asters and grasses, this would make a difference in giving a little bit back to nature.

The event was hosted by Good Earth Gatherings.

https://goodearthgatherings.com/index.html

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

 

 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for July 17th, we will play the latest edition of Climate Hour produced by Bob Grove: Climate Science and Renewable Technology.

Science has now demonstrated that there’s enough wind energy globally to supply the energy needs of the entire planet. Combine this with all of the renewable solar and water energy, and there’s more energy available than we can ever use.  Detailed plans and grid-studies are in place for all 50 U.S. States, hundreds of cities worldwide, 145+ countries and over 400 international corporations to all transition to 100% renewable water-wind-solar energy by 2035 with an infrastructure payback of just six years. There’s nothing stopping us from solving the climate crisis today using existing technology.

Join host, Bob Grove, and Dr Mark Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University, to discuss Climate Science and Renewable Technology.

On our show for July 10th, host Terri Wilke will speak with Mavrick Knoles, President and Co-Founder of Legacy EV, which is located in Tempe, AZ.  By now all our listeners should be aware that “EV” is shorthand for “electric vehicles”, the wave of our future.  Legacy EV is the market leader in aftermarket EV applications. Legacy offers fully integrated EV systems from top manufacturers. With support from Legacy EV, builders around the world are ensuring the transition to EV that both honors the past, while protecting the future.

As it stands, the production of EVs is not equivalent to the demand. Not only that, but what are we going to do with the millions of internal combustion vehicles currently in use?  Legacy EV manufactures conversion kits to turn internal combustion vehicles into efficient EVs.  Legacy EV offers certified EV technician training programs, and EV design consultation for businesses around the world. The transition to electric vehicles does not mean we have to give up the cars we love and the auto-shops we trust.

Legacy EV is the one stop solution for EV kits, components, education, and build-support.

How can this be done? Tune in to learn!

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

Peter Fiekowsky joins host Craig Lubow to discuss climate restoration.  He will discuss all aspects of Climate Restoration--what it is, how it works and why it's so vitally important to the survival of the planet.
What will it really take to create a healthy future for humanity? In “Climate Restoration: The Only Future That Will Sustain the Human Race'', Peter Fiekowsky and Carole Douglis argue that we need to restore the Earth to a safe climate, rather than just trying to slow down our climate emissions, to ensure a livable planet for generations to come. This will require removing a trillion tons of excess CO2 from the atmosphere. The good news is that this task, while enormous and technically challenging, is eminently feasible.
 
Peter and Carole can also discuss the impacts of climate change on our mental health. There have been several reports and studies on the effects of climate change on physical and mental health.

 

On our show for June 19th, host Richard Mabion and his co-host, Rich Gutowski, will speak with Maureen Mahoney, a lifelong resident of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas.  A lawyer by training, she is a former prosecutor and spent the majority of her legal career working in child welfare, both as in-house counsel for a large nonprofit working with children and families and later as a Guardian ad Litem for children in foster care.  Maureen spent nine years in local government working as chief of staff for two mayors in Wyandotte County, Mayors Holland and Alvey.  Since January 1, 2022, she has started her own consulting company, Mahoney KC, LLC, working with new technology startups, nonprofits, and companies looking for help with strategies and possible state and federal funding.

Climate change makes us apparent that a world of change is needed. Fundamentally, people need good jobs and job skills in order to be gainfully employed.

Property has value and maintaining property in a way that people can afford the utility costs of heating and cooling their homes is in the best interest of all.

How can this be done? Tune in to share ideas!

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

We rebroadcast an earlier show hosted by Richard Mabion.

On our show for May 15th, host Terri Wilke will speak with her guest, Courtney Masterson, ecologist and executive director of Native Lands Restoration Collaborative, AKA Native Lands LLC.

 



Courtney Masterson will reflect on her path to creating a life-affirming career in her community of Lawrence, Kansas (and beyond), inspired by her love for the prairie and people, uniting the two for a healthier world and brighter future.

She has given regular prairie walks on pristine pieces of prairie for several years and hopefully for many more years.  Our urban areas are growing rapidly and development changes the face of the city every day. People struggle to connect with nature for many reasons – loss of natural areas, economic instability, and accessibility, to name a few.

Often, an open heart and hard work can build bridges between people and places. In just the last 200 years, we’ve lost over 95% of the tallgrass prairie that once dominated the Midwestern landscape - an ecosystem that is many thousands of years old. We can’t bring that expansive prairie back but we can protect what is left.

On April 27th, 2923, city employees of the Lawrence Kansas Parks and Recreation Department "mistakenly" sprayed herbicide on a five-acre stretch of prairie behind the Prairie Park Nature Center.  The herbicide has done a very good job of killing broadleaf plants.  Certainly, early native prairie blooming plants were destroyed.  Rather than protect that piece of prairie, Courtney Masterson is actively engaged with the restoration of the damaged prairie plant life.  Courtney will tell the tale.

https://www.grasslandheritage.org/prairiepark

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for May 8th, host Richard Mabion and Rich Gutowski will speak with guests, Alicia F Smith and Michelle Ramaker of F&S Building Innovations, Inc. which is in Roanoke, VA.

Alicia Smith is currently Vice President/ Chief Operations Officer of F&S Building Innovations - a Class A Contractor with large commercial and residential divisions specializing in custom renovations.  Alicia directly manages the Residential division averaging over 600 projects annually and works at the executive management level overseeing all marketing, production and operations.  She is the in-house design professional providing interior design, 3D renderings and construction drawings for design/build projects.  Alicia serves as President of Build Smart Institute- managing operations of the construction trade school that provides introductory training, as well as professional development training for the construction industry.   Alicia is currently the 2023 President of Roanoke Regional Home Builders Association and serves on the Executive Board for Home Builders Association of Virginia.  Alicia and her husband own Smith Home Inspections where she manages the accounting and business operations.

Alicia spent almost 15 years as General Manager and CFO of an international light gauge steel manufacturer, overseeing all operations from design and engineering to production, sales, accounting and human resources.  Prior to that Alicia attended Liberty University.  Alicia previously served on the board of directors for the Better Business Bureau, Parkway Christian Academy, and Palestine Baptist Church and currently serves on the Valley Business Front Advisory Board and Vice-chair of HBAV Education Foundation. Alicia is highly involved with volunteer work at her church and daughter’s school. Alicia was awarded RRHBA’s 2022 Builder of the Year and regularly receives local design professional awards.

Michelle Ramaker is Alicia’s sister and she is employed as Residential Coordinator at F&S Building Innovations.  She, Alicia, Rich and Richard are going to talk about the mission of Build Smart Institute™, which is to educate and train individuals to become career-ready and advance within construction industry occupations. With a combination of virtual learning, classroom instruction and hands-on laboratory skill practice, Build Smart Institute will train you, test you, and give you the tools to be successful.

https://fsbuildinginc.com/

 

https://buildsmartinstitute.com/

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for April 24th, host Brent Ragsdale will speak with his guest, Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow at Post Carbon Institute and the author of 14 books, including POWER: LIMITS AND PROSPECTS FOR HUMAN SURVIVAL, along with hundreds of essays and articles, some of which have appeared in NATURE, WALL STREET JOURNAL and THE AMERICAN PROSPECT. He has lectured on 6 continents and has appeared in numerous environmental documentary films. Brent and Richard Heinberg will provide our listeners with a follow up on the event - Redesigning Our Communities for Life After Fossil Fuels, for which he was the keynote speaker.

https://www.postcarbon.org/

On November 7, 2022, EcoRadio KC promoted Redesigning our Communities for Life After Fossil Fuels, a series of virtual and in-person community events is occurring in 6 locations in the U.S. and Canada.  Kansas City hosted the second event on Saturday, November 12th on Zoom.

Brent and Richard will provide follow up on the event.  It’s time to scale way back, redesign how we’re living and roll up our sleeves to restore our ecosystems, soil, biodiversity and connections with our neighbors. As we learn and take action on how to live within the Earth’s limits, it’s vital that we co-invent and redesign our new lifestyles with every member of our community, especially our underserved community members.

Too often, communities of color and low-income communities have been left out of the conversation, the plans, and the funding, even while being the most seriously impacted by the climate and other crises. Let’s move forward by coming together, learning from one another, and supporting each other as we strengthen our resilience and face the challenges ahead.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for April 17th, come celebrate Earth Week live on KKFI 90.1 FM Community Radio’s EcoRadio KC.

Join us on-air through our Earthweek Live! webinar link or call KKFI 90.1 FM’s studio line to share your questions and comments on the “Future of Climate Change”. This special 2023 Earth Festival broadcast will be co-hosted by Terri Wilke, Producer of EcoRadio KC, and Bob Grove, Executive Producer of the Climate Hour.

Can’t make it live? Share your vision of the “Future of Climate Change” in a short, 60-second or less, video. Send your name, city and video to EarthWeekLive@ClimateGKC.org. Selected videos will be played on-air and posted to our websites.  Submission to EarthWeekLive@ClimateGKC.org grants permission to use your name and video content on-air and internet.

LOCATION

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_y4xlv30yQGO1jIL0vU9Ztg#/registration

or call the KKFI studio at 816.931.5534

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Website: https://climategkc.org/EF23/

Email: info@ClimateGKC.org

Phone: 816-336-9783

EF23 is an Earth Day endeavor sponsored by Climate Action KC and this year the events will be outstanding.

https://climategkc.org/ef23/

Kansas City’s 2023 Earth Festival (EF23) is nine days of fairs, workshops, volunteer opportunities and activities throughout the metro area — both in-person and online. With warmer weather setting in, this is a great chance to get outside, learn about the earth and celebrate the planet we call home. All events are free and open to the public.

EF23 runs April 15th through April 23rd.  Here is the complete festival schedule and event registration.  https://climategkc.org/EF23/

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our show for April 3rd, host Richard Mabion and Rich Gutowski will speak with John Michael, a local businessman. John Michael was born and reared in Kansas City KS until his sophomore year in high school (1988) when his family moved to Shawnee, KS.  John grew up around his father's Chevrolet Dealership on 78th and State Ave, when after high school and some college, John followed his father into the automotive business.

After 30 years in automotive business as a General Manager, operating domestic, import and luxury franchises, John has moved into the environmental tech world. John is currently representing an environmental recycling technology trying to relocate to Kansas City KS. Economic development, green job creation and job training are at the forefront of John's efforts.

In addition to the automotive business, John has been active in several charities in the Kansas City area including The Hands and Hearts Board at Children's Mercy, 87 and Running's Ignition Lab and the Eric Berry Foundation, to name a few.

Richard and Rich will be talking to him as an independent businessperson, and the role he can produce in the multi-city project that has been discussed with our listeners.  Job Training and Workforce Development in the low-income portion of the population so that green jobs can be created where people live and need the opportunity to live in comfortable, affordable homes with pride of ownership.  Sounds like the American Dream and it can be available for everyone.

Richard and Rich understand that climate change requires homeowners to retrofit their homes so that people can live comfortably in extreme heat and extreme cold.  Otherwise, the cost of utilities is more oppressive to people than the temperature.  What is more, if training and skilled job opportunities can occur in low-income neighborhoods, we will have done improvements for all times.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our March 27th show, EcoRadio KC will broadcast the work of five University of Kansas Environmental Studies students on the topic of food insecurity.  You might wonder what food insecurity has to do with environmental issues but the students will explain how food insecurity requires our society to make real change to policy-making and social science with an eye on the environment.

The students Ben Oprisu, Hannah Min, Clare Blanck, Connor Schmaus and Adeline Kelly, explain that the lack of adequate and healthy food is ultimately an economic and environmental justice issue, addressing things like income inequality, racial discrimination, transportation and housing needs, political representation, and more will be needed.  Now, that the price of a dozen eggs has skyrocketed, all households are affected, but especially, since levels of income have racial disparity, households face an unfair struggle to bring good food to the table.

It is impossible to separate our food production, processing and distribution from our environment. Unfortunately, the industrial or “conventional” way of producing food causes large-scale environmental degradation.

Mono-cropped fields require chemical fertilizers and pesticides that run off into soil and waterways. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), also known as factory farms, result in excess animal waste that pollutes soil, water and air. These methods of food production use finite resources without replenishing them.

In addition, the way we produce and consume food contributes to global climate change, the effects of which exert a huge impact on the food system. Drought, flood, extreme heat and extreme cold are already affecting crops.

This first time they have been on EcoRadio KC, these students clearly explain there is food insecurity in our society.  Hopefully, they will return with more information on what we can do to correct the problem.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our March 20th show, host Terri Wilke will speak with Bryce Meeker, President, Northeastern Biochar Solutions, LLC.  Bryce lives in the Kansas City area and he reached out to EcoRadio KC because he wants us all to know about Saratoga Biochar Solutions, a project of Northeastern Biochar Solutions which can provide the most sustainable use of biosolids to the benefit of human health and the environment.

https://saratogabiochar.com/

Saratoga Biochar Solutions is a business that was established to build, own, and operate a carbon fertilizer manufacturing facility in Moreau, NY. The facility is designed to process up to 15% of the biosolids generated in NY in the waste water treatment plant and produce a revolutionary new bio-fertilizer; Carbon Fertilizer™.

This is not our first show on the topic of biochar, which is black carbon produced from biomass sources such as wood chips, plant residues, manure or other agricultural waste products for the purpose of transforming the biomass carbon into a more stable form. Biochar is produced when organic material is heated in a zero- or low-oxygen environment. Biochar is a charcoal-like material and when it is added to soil, the effect is to remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it underground, where the carbon does not contribute to global warming. Biochar then brings agricultural benefits by boosting soil’s fertility and ability to withstand drought or flooding; it can also rid soil of heavy metals and other pollutants.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can about the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our March 13th show, EcoRadio KC will broadcast a very interesting Climate Hour produced by Bob Grove: The Carbon Almanac.  The Carbon Almanac is both a book and a global community; an easily understood source of climate knowledge and an amazing example of collective action. The book itself is a compilation of reliable information, resources, charts, graphs and illustrations on the science, impacts, and solutions to climate change contributed by 300 writers, researchers, and illustrators from 41 different countries. The collective that created the book has grown into a network of podcasts, a LinkedIn course, an online climate resource collection, an educator’s guide, free children’s editions in 20+ languages, and a network of thousands of climate “changemakers” in 90+ countries.

Join host, Bob Grove, and guests as they discuss the Carbon Almanac.

Guests include:

Cathryn Barnard, co-director of Working the Future (London, UK)

Saurabh Mithal, founder of Passionately Curious (Bangalore, India)

Anna Smith, Pubic Health Professional (Iquitos, Peru)

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

On our March 6th show, EcoRadio KC will broadcast the most recent Climate Hour produced by Bob Grove: How to Lobby for Climate Solutions.  Making sustainable choices in our personal lives is our first responsibility if we want to live a healthy life and give that option to our children. But what comes next? How do we promote sustainable choices to our communities and beyond? Citizen lobbying provides ordinary people with the opportunity to make a profound difference on big issues. Whether writing letters to editors, calling your elected representatives, or meeting officials in person or on zoom, citizen lobbying is a simple, effective way to transform the political landscape in ways that improve your life, your community and the world.

Join host, Bob Grove, and guests to discuss how to lobby our elected representatives for climate solutions.

Guests include:

Mark Reynolds, Executive Director, Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL)

Josh Turner, Councilman, New Albany, Indiana

Daniela Brod, Co-Coordinator for Oregon, CCL

Stephen Melton, Leader, CCL Kansas City Missouri

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

For February 27th, host Brent Ragsdale speaks with his guest, Stan Cox, Research Fellow for Ecosphere Studies with The Land Institute.  The Land Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit research organization based in Salina, Kansas, that was founded in 1976. The Land Institute co-leads the global movement for perennial, diverse, truly regenerative agriculture.

https://landinstitute.org/

Stan Cox had been lead breeder for The Land Institute’s Perennial Sorghum program when he transitioned to Research Fellow for Ecosphere Studies. Stan now dedicates his time to researching the global ecological emergency. He will communicate and engage with other researchers and the general public through writing, events, and presentations in conjunction with the Ecosphere Studies team.

Cox’s new role is a natural transition. In addition to his direct agricultural research, Stan is an expert in ecological limits and the energetics of human society and he has written extensively on those topics. The Land Institute’s deep interest in grappling with how humanity realizes a perennial vision within the status quo of agriculture is an exercise in living sustainably.   You’ve heard the expression, measure twice, cut once?  That is a sure way of making the right cut.  The Land Institute would like to teach us to plant once, tend perennially and harvest the wealth of our crops to feed a hungry planet and not just its people.  The goal is a thriving ecosphere which we luckily have, but need be careful not to destroy.

Both Stan and The Land Institute remain committed to developing perennial sorghum for the U.S. and the global south. Brent and Stan will talk about The Land Institute, Stan's career and some of the books he's written.

https://www.resilience.org/resilience-author/stan-cox/#:~:text=Cox%20is%20the%20author%20of,Planet%3A%20Corporate%20Food%20and%20Medicine.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

For February 20, host Terri Wilke speaks with her guest, Bill Moore, Editor of EV World. Human selected and curated; EV World has been bringing us the future in motion for over 25 years.

https://evworld.com/

EV World commenced publication officially on January 1, 1998 with an objective to provide a human face to the topic of sustainable transportation with a focus on the people and policy, as well as the product.

EV World's publisher and editor in chief is J. William "Bill" Moore. Bill is a former minister who left the clergy to pursue a career in journalism and marketing. He became involved in the Internet in 1993, launching his first website in September 1994. Three years later, he started EV World and has published it continuously since then.

EV World has interviewed hundreds of guests, published literally more than 30,000 articles and news releases, and literally reached millions of readers, listeners and viewers every year. EV World has helped contribute to the now steady electric vehicle revolution that is taking place in the transition away from fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine to cleaner, quieter, super-efficient and just plain more fun to drive electric vehicles of all shapes and sizes, from land-based to seaborne to airborne and even the odd Lunar and Martian rover.

EV World is based in Omaha, Nebraska in the heartland of America, but with global interest and reach.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

Bob Eye, an Environmental law attorney, joins host Craig Lubow to discuss recent landmark Supreme Court cases relating to the environment.  In West Virginia vs. EPA, the Court rejected the EPA's Clean Power Plan, a significant setback that will negatively impact both clean air and clean water.  Sackett vs EPA is currently pending in the Supreme Court.  This time its applied to the EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Water Act for purposes of defining “waters of the U.S.”. A ruling against the EPA’s regulation would leave vast areas of the U.S. without CWA protections.  This show airs during our Winter pledge drive, a time to be generous while showing your support for protecting the environment through programming on Eco Radio KC.  Bob previously represented the Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club.  Bob helped to stop some power plants in landmark cases in the Kansas Courts.

For February 6th, host Richard Mabion and Rich Gutowski continue their discussion of ecological improvement in the lives of inner-city low-income residents.  Afterall, “ecological” means the relation of living beings to one another and to their physical surroundings.

This is black history month.  Richard, Rich and their guest, Aimee Gendusa-English, Project Director, Energy Partnerships Project at the National Community Action Partnership offices in Washington, DC will recognize that thus far, our society has denied blacks opportunities which our dominant white society has more freely accessed.

https://communityactionpartnership.com/

Richard and Rich realize that treating people less favorably because of their race is a strategy that has failed to assure our mutual planetary existence – perhaps discrimination has not caused climate catastrophe, but the time is now for all hands-on deck to help each other weather the climate extremes.  Humans must learn to live in harmony with the natural rhythms of the earth or perish.

When we began the integration of our society in the 1960’s, community action partnerships, or CAP agencies, were created by our government. Community Action comes out of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty and from the advocacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 created the Community Action Network of national and locally-focused organizations that connect millions of children and families to greater opportunity.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

For January 30th, we will talk about Kansas Senate Bill 47 (SB 47), a proposed law scheduled to be heard by the Kansas Senate Commerce Committee on January 31, 2023.  If passed, SB 47 would disallow any municipal government from restricting the consumer use of single use plastics.

Virtually this same bill was passed by the Kansas Legislature in March of 2022, SB 493, however, the Governor of Kansas vetoed the bill and the Kansas Legislature was not able to vote to override her veto.

Although SB 47, as well it’s root stock, SB 493, arguably violate the Kansas State Constitution because the law blatantly removes home rule from matters of waste in the municipal government, the bodies which deal with waste disposal, it passed both the Senate and House Committees during the 2022 legislative sessions and may well be on the Governor’s desk again.

Logically, the Governor would veto the bill once again and then we will see if the legislature as it is currently composed can again override her veto.

Please tune in as we begin our hour with a piece from Writers Voice https://www.writersvoice.net/, an interview with Jennie Romer, a lawyer, sustainability expert, founder of https://www.plasticbaglaws.org/, and former Legal Associate for the Surfrider Foundation's Plastic Pollution Initiative. She is the author of Can I Recycle This? and has worked on plastic pollution reduction policy for nearly 15 years.

https://www.jennieromer.com/

Zack Pistora, State Lobbyist for the Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club and Nancy Muma, Group Leader of the Wakarusa Group for the Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club and also Director of the Sustainability Advisory Committee for the City of Lawrence Kansas will talk about how we can be more aware of the problems of single use plastic waste.

https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/pollution-act/

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

For January 23rd, please tune in to hear host Richard Mabion and Rich Gutowski talk with guests Dr. Pamela Talley and Karan Gupta, as they move forward with the 2nd step of designing the caliber of strategy needed to provide Job Training and Workforce Development in the low-income portion of the population.

Dr. Pamela Talley is from St. Louis, MO.  She is a member of the EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEPAC) team from region 7.  She is Executive Director of Lewis Place Historical Preservation, Inc.   Lewis Place, the oldest African American private street in St. Louis, Missouri is a quiet, stately neighborhood just north of the Central West End. In 2001 a group of determined residents formed Lewis Place Historic Preservation, Inc. Now gardens abound in the neighborhood and many of the stately homes have regained their old polish. The grounds of the central parkway undergo annual revitalization, and neighbors gather there every September for the Lewis Place Reunion and Barbeque.

Karan Gupta is a contractor from Kansas City KS and he is concentrating on restoring the land bank property in low-income neighborhoods.

Richard and Rich understand that climate change requires homeowners to retrofit their homes so that people can live comfortably in extreme heat and extreme cold.  Otherwise, the cost of utilities is more oppressive to people than the temperature.  What is more, if training and skilled job opportunities can occur in low-income neighborhoods, we will have done improvements for all times.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

 

Margaret Mead

For January 16th, please tune in to hear from a presentation recently shared by the Sustainable Sanctuary Coalition (SSC).  They are a 501(C)3 interfaith nonprofit begun in 2005 in the Kansas City area for the purpose of fostering earth care in congregations.  We will hear portions of their December, 2022 Rebates and Tax Credits presentation, which is information according to the Inflation Reduction Act.  It is also now available to watch on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X0agZpSf2g&t=8s

Presenters were:

Bill Roush, who is retired from the Black & Veatch (B&V) Renewables group. While at B&V, he was a Project Manager assisting solar developers with Interconnection Applications. He also was the utility scale solar plant warranty manager. Bill has an undergraduate degree in Urban Affairs and an MBA from UMKC. He was the founding Director of the Metro Energy Center for the City of Kansas City, Missouri. Bill is currently a Board member of the Climate and Energy Project and the Mainstreet Credit Union.

Bill Griffith, the Energy Chair of the Thomas Hart Benton Group of the Sierra Club. He is on the Climate Protection Plan Steering Committee for the city of Kansas City, Missouri. He formerly has served as Chapter Chair of the Kansas Sierra Club along with various other positions.

Ken Riead, retired but still active as an online instructor for the EnergySmart Institute. He served as the Energy Administrator for the City of Independence, MO and Commercial Energy Consultant for the Board of Public Utilities of Kansas City, KS. Ken developed the initial standards for home energy auditors and raters for the U.S. Department of Labor. Ken is a chartered ‘Legend in Energy’ and a lifetime member of the Association of Energy Engineers. Ken is currently the President of the Heartland Renewable Energy Society.

and

Sharla Riead, owner of Hathmore Technologies, LLC and the EnergySmart Institute.  Sharla is the lead instructor for the online and on-demand courses at https://energysmartinstitute.com/ which range from professional certification and continuing education courses to general interest courses in the fields of energy and environmental conservation, building science, indoor air quality, and solar energy.   Sharla started her company in 1979 and has worked with hundreds of homeowners, builders, code officials, program implementers, and energy professionals to improve the energy efficiency of the nation's building stock.  Sharla is the past president of the Heartland Renewable Energy Society and is an International Code Council Preferred Education Provider.

The Inflation Reduction Act can take a big bite out of fossil fuel use, with rebates and tax credits for equipment that efficiently uses electricity in our homes.  Savings from these technologies can help our household budgets to better withstand inflation and droughts’ impacts on food prices.  This program supports our readiness to buy electric vehicles, solar panel systems, battery storage, heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, and electric ranges.  Energy audits, weatherization, and insulation will also be discussed.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

This will be a great radio hour!

On January 9th, host Brent Ragsdale talks with his guests, Nathan Klein, and Terri Wilke about politics – the Green Party in Missouri and as it exists in Kansas.  What's the Green Party? The word "Green" means more than just the environment - it means doing what's right for healthy systems. That's why the tenets of the Green Party supports people, planet and peace.  They are committed to social, racial, economic, and environmental justice.

https://www.missourigreenparty.org/

https://kansasgreenparty.org/

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

On January 2nd, host Richard Mabion talks with his guests, Paul and John Grahovac who, along with Rich Gutowski, will continue a conversation about energy retrofits of buildings and homes in the inner city.

Paul Grahovac is Vice President of New Business Development/LEED AP at BuildSMART.  Paul has the knowledge to take a project through LEED certification and is well-versed in all aspects of green building. His son, John Grahovac, is President, Technical Director at Grahovac Construction, LLC, which is located in Kansas City Kansas.

LEED Professional Exams are administered by the Green Business Certification Inc. for professionals to earn credentials and certificates. The exams test knowledge is based on the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Rating Systems.

Thich Nhat Hahn said, “Our love and admiration for the Earth has the power to unite us and remove all boundaries, separation and discrimination. Centuries of individualism and competition have brought about tremendous destruction and alienation. We need to re-establish true communication with ourselves, with the Earth, and with one another as children of the same mother. We need more than new technology to protect the planet. We need real community and co-operation.”

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

Ty Gorman joins host Craig Lubow to discuss the lack of transparency at the Board of Public Utilities in Kansas City, Kansas, including the lack of affordable water in Kansas City, Kansas and related cut-offs. Ty is on staff at the Beyond Coal Campaign at the Sierra Club and is also involved in other issues at the Sierra Club.

On December 19th, host Terri Wilke talks with her guests about the Keystone Pipeline spill that occurred on December 8, 2022 in Washington County, Kansas.  You will learn the most recent press release from EPA Region 7 Public Information Officer, Kellen Ashford.

https://arcg.is/514zb

Then, stay tuned to hear more about the Keystone Oil pipeline spill.   Listeners are probably aware that the Washington County, Kansas spill was the largest Keystone Oil pipeline spill anywhere in the United States to this date.  We at EcoRadio KC believe it was only a matter of time before the largest spill occurred and that more spills are likely.  Some might be larger and closer to areas in which people live.  This is because the Keystone Pipeline transports tar sands, an abrasive, caustic oil sludge from Alberta Canada where it is mined to refineries in the southern United States.

Although the expansion of the Keystone project is abandoned, the Keystone Pipeline system continues to operate over 1300 miles of pipeline in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois.

Zack Pistora, Legislative Director and State Lobbyist, Kansas Chapter of Sierra Club and Terri will discuss when Keystone was built, where it operates now and how it carries the tar sands.

https://boereport.com/2022/10/07/tc-energy-increasing-keystone-oil-pipeline-capacity-for-a-couple-of-months-from-november/

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

On December 12th, you can hear the latest podcast from Climate Hour, called Teaching Children about Climate Change.  Host Bob Grove speaks with his guests:

Beth Sarver, President and Vision Keeper, Kansas City Restoration School

Briana Paxton, Physical Science Teacher, Kansas City International Academy

Katy White, Educational Consultant

and

Stacey Adams, Special Education Teacher, Kansas Virtual Academy and Founder of the One Thing Movement

about their ideas to prepare our children for living in our current world of climate disaster.  A world filled with extreme temperatures, life-threatening storms, and collapsing food systems asks us to teach and provide the skills our children will need to create the next generation of built environments.  We are all aware that planet earth has limits to the expansion we have pushed thus far.  We can adapt.  We can sustain.  We can build a better future.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

 

For our show on December 5th, tune in to hear host Richard Mabion speak with his friend and colleague Rich Gutowski.  Rich is Founder of Alveare Foundation and Alveare PBC which are focused on regionally placed based community development using Public Benefit corporations as both the tool of cross sector collaboration and the means of providing sustainable long support for community development work.

Alveare Foundation invests in the long-term development of relationships across sector and across urban and suburban regions under the premise the nagging social issues are not the disfunction of one community but a symptom of a silo’ ed system where many well-intentioned people are disempowered from making good decisions. Alveare acts as a field catalyst to build formal and informal relational networks and encourage other systems change agents to do the same. Alveare supports the development of communities within sectors and cultures, doing it better together with the similar, and dis-similar factions that make up all communities.  The goal is to encourage early adopters (systems change agents) to create transformational communities working across sectors.

Richard and Rich will bring us up to speed on the status of their building community endeavors.  Richard will tell us about his experiences with the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.  He just returned from an intense week in Washington DC.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

 

Host Craig Lubow attended a Water Affordability Conference on November 12, 2022, presented by the Water Sentinels Committee of the Sierra Club . We are playing a segment of that conference that featured Molly Codding who did a presentation on Lead Contamination in the water supply in the schools and the impact of lead contamination on water affordability. Molly focuses on Washington State and Minnesota, with a focus on water on the native reservations. Following this segment, we play a portion of a movie shown to the conference about lead and water affordability across the country and the impact on communities.

For our show on November 21st, tune in to hear host Terri Wilke speak with representatives of a partnership between a housing nonprofit, Tenants to Homeowners, and Build SMART, a Lawrence, Kansas based company that manufactures and ships the components of homes for assemblage onsite.

Rebecca Buford, Executive Director of Tenants to Homeowners, will speak about what construction of quality and energy efficient housing will mean to residents of Lawrence Kansas where there is a need for supportive housing.

https://tenants-to-homeowners.org/

David Boyer, the President and CEO of Build SMART and Prosoco, will explain the reasons for his companys’ involvement.  He feels the need to leverage the knowledge that the builders have to create a model that can be cost-effective and can be used to help house the people that are most in need. He believes enduring and resilient buildings should be the rule to guide our decisions about the built environment.

https://buildsmartna.com/

Kay Johnson, MSES, CHMM, LEED Green Associate, Sustainability & Environment Manager at Prosoco, is a Sustainability Advisory Board representative for the city of Lawrence and she helped build the partnership.  She tells us the prioritization of renewable energy sources as part of the development process ensures there is sustainability. She will speak about how Lawrence addressed the need for low-cost housing in a fashion that is energy efficient, affordable and environmentally sustainable.

https://prosoco.com/

There was an event on November 14th, 2022 when the partnership built the frame of a 500 square foot house in less than 3 hours!

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

 

For our show on November 14th, tune in to hear host Craig Lubow speak with Abel Russ, Senior Attorney with The Environmental Integrity Project and co-author of the report “Poisonous Coverup: The Widespread Failure of the Power Industry to Clean Up Coal Ash Dumps”.

The new report from EarthJustice and The Environmental Integrity Project, was embargoed until Nov. 3rd.  It found that 96 percent of coal plants are not complying with the EPA’s 2015 Coal Ash Rule - negligence that has resulted in ash landfills or waste ponds that are leaking arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, and other metals into groundwater, often threatening streams, rivers, and drinking water aquifers, in addition to threatening the health of low-income communities and people of color.

Missouri has 12 toxic coal ash sites, according to the report’s findings:

https://ashtracker.org/search?q=missouri

Seven years after EPA imposed the first federal rules requiring the cleanup of coal ash waste dumps, 96 percent of power plants that are contaminating groundwater with toxic pollutants are not planning any treatment - and only one is planning a comprehensive cleanup.

The failure of the vast majority of companies to follow the 2015 Coal Ash Rule comes despite monitoring data that show that 91 percent of 292 U.S. coal-fired plants have ash landfills or waste ponds that are leaking arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, and other metals into groundwater, often threatening streams, rivers, and drinking water aquifers.

These are among the conclusions of a new report, “Poisonous Coverup: The Widespread Failure of the Power Industry to Clean Up Coal Ash Dumps,” by Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP). The report found that some power companies are manipulating data and monitoring systems to avoid cleanup requirements and proposing fake cleanup strategies that do nothing.

Abel Russ, Senior Attorney at the Environmental Integrity Project and co-author of the report, said: “Power companies have an obligation to step up and comply with this landmark rule, because toxic pollutants from coal ash dumps disproportionately threaten the health of low-income communities and people of color. The need for coal ash cleanup is an environmental justice issue that cannot be ignored, even as our nation shifts to cleaner energy sources.”

Although coal consumption has declined across the U.S. over the last decade as natural gas and renewable energy sources have become cheaper, the power industry continues to generate about 70 million tons of coal ash annually. After 100 years of burning coal, U.S. power plants have generated a total of about five billion tons of coal ash – enough toxic waste to reach the moon in train cars.

The primary goals of the 2015 Coal Ash Rule were to stop the continued disposal of coal ash in leaking ponds and landfills, to close these ponds and landfills in a safe manner, to monitor groundwater for contamination, and to clean up contaminated sites and restore groundwater quality.

An examination of public records and data from coal plants across the U.S. by Earthjustice and EIP reveals that the first goal has been partly achieved, because most coal plants are no longer sending coal ash to unlined ash ponds. But the “Poisonous Coverup” report shows that the other goals of the Coal Ash Rule have been thwarted by the utility industry, which is manipulating data and monitoring systems to make contaminated sites look clean and to avoid cleanup.

The “Poisonous Coverup” report analyzes the cleanup status of the 10 worst contamination sites in the U.S., and includes pollution data on all known coal ash waste sites across the U.S. for which information is available.

In addition to analyzing problems with coal ash cleanup, the report also details solutions to help accelerate cleanup a...

It’s time to scale way back, redesign how we’re living and roll up our sleeves to restore our ecosystems, soil, biodiversity and connections with our neighbors. As we learn and take action on how to live within the Earth’s limits, it’s vital that we co-invent and redesign our new lifestyles with every member of our community, especially our underserved community members.  We all have expertise on how to be resilient.

Too often, communities of color and low-income communities have been left out of the conversation, the plans, and the funding, even while being the most seriously impacted by the climate and other crises. Let’s move forward by coming together, learning from one another, and supporting each other as we strengthen our resilience and face the challenges ahead.

On EcoRadio KC you can hear more about an exciting upcoming event, Redesigning Our Communities for Life After Fossil Fuels.  This series of virtual and in-person community events is occurring in 6 locations in the U.S. and Canada.  Kansas City will host the second event on Saturday, November 12th from 1 to 5 PM on Zoom which Biodiversity for a Livable Climate is partnering with the Post Carbon Institute and many local community groups.

https://bio4climate.org/redesigning-our-communities-for-life-after-fossil-fuels-november-12/

Host Brent Ragsdale has a chance to speak with the Keynote Speaker, Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow at Post Carbon Institute and the author of 14 books, including POWER: LIMITS AND PROSPECTS FOR HUMAN SURVIVAL, along with hundreds of essays and articles, some of which have appeared in NATURE, WALL STREET JOURNAL and THE AMERICAN PROSPECT. He has lectured on 6 continents and has appeared in numerous environmental documentary films.

In an hour, we only have time to give you a flavor of the robust upcoming event, and Brent will also speak with some of the presenters, including Louise Mitchell, Development and Outreach Specialist for Biodiversity for a Liveable Climate, Hilary Noonan of Mad Hatter Compost Tea, Staroyce Nealy, Co-Founder of Global One Urban Farming, and Carl Stafford, Founder of MY REGION WINS!, a Kansas City creative nonprofit organization.

Louise Mitchell has advocated for environmental health throughout her career.  Louise is from Toronto, Canada and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Notre Dame of Maryland University.

Hilary Noonan’s work focuses on issues of resilience, soil health and climate change. She holds a Master’s Degree in Landscape Architecture from Kansas State University, a BA from Yale University and has certification as a Permaculture Designer. In her quest for climate mitigation strategies, she has studied with soil microbiologists, farmers and researchers. That work has helped her define regenerative, healthy soil and how to get there.

Carl Stafford received the 2022 Cultural Producer Grantee from Charlotte Street Foundation to help turn a once blighted/vacant property owned by Land Bank into BOON AREA 1, an environmental, nature-based, interactive, functional art installation that acts as a contemporary community garden. The goal with BOON AREA 1 is to be a pilot project that addresses land ownership and generate revenue to help neighborhoods fund projects and programs, compensate residents who take on roles in neighborhoods and ultimately stipend every household in the neighborhood to help residents best deal with gentrification.

Staroyce Nealy is a co-founder of Global One Urban Farming, an organization that grows over 25,000 lbs. of organic vegetables and fruit on over an acre of urban farmland, distributing the food, for free, to thousands of individuals within the inner Kansas City urban communities.

Our own Richard Mabion is the Event Moderator!  His life and perspective will assure a world class event!

For Monday, October 31th, we will play the most recent Climate Hour podcast and hear host Bob Grove will speak with his guests on the topic of the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is the successor to the House-passed Build Back Better Act and is the largest piece of federal climate legislation ever to be enacted in the United States. Is it climate salvation, better than nothing or a fossil fuel lifeline?

Join host, Bob Grove, and guests to discuss the Inflation Reduction Act.

Guests include:

Winston Apple – Author and former member of the Democratic National Committee

Howie Hawkins – Co-founder of the Green Party of the United States, and presidential nominee in the 2020 presidential election

Tony Sirna – Vice-President of Organizational Strategy, Citizens’ Climate Lobby

Todd Vachon – Director of the Labor Education Action Research Network at Rutgers University.

https://climategkc.org/climate-hour/

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

 

We are celebrating KKFI – it’s the pledge drive! Listeners are aware that EcoRadio KC is produced every week by volunteers, and we need to ask you to support KKFI, YOUR Community Radio Station.

If you would like to own an hour of EcoRadio KC, please call us now at 888-931-0901 or go online to https://kkfi.org/ and click the donate button.

If you do this when EcoRadio is live, we get to thank you live! Share KKFI’s mission of providing an independent voice to information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. You can become a sustaining member!

For today’s show, stay tuned to hear host Richard Mabion speak with his guest, Zack Pistora, Lobbyist for the Kansas Sierra Club. Kansas is poised to benefit big-time from the billions of dollars Congress allocated for upgrading American infrastructure with the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment Act.

We want to educate community leaders and advocate for maximizing investment in statewide programs to protect water, save energy and make the state more equitable, eco-friendly, and resilient. Homeowners could benefit from fewer lead pipes, better access to high-speed internet, modern appliances and energy-efficient improvements, rooftop solar, and electric vehicles.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

For Monday, October 17th, 2022, host Terri Wilke will speak with her guest, Bo Brown, on the topic of foraging.  Bo is a truly knowledgeable person who has experience actually finding, harvesting and cooking wild plants.

The name First Earth represents a time when humankind walked in balance with the earth. Learning the ancient ways can re-awaken our awareness of how little we really need to live, and we can be mentally, physically and spiritually nourished by that knowledge. Recognizing the sacred gift of our food plants and animals, simply even living outside and sleeping under the stars can re-acquaint us with the miracle of “the spirit that in moves in all things”, and help guide us toward a healthier relationship with our world. It is imperative that we always choose to minimize our impacts to the flora and fauna in our already-struggling wild areas.

First Earth’s Founder and Director, Bo Brown, has been teaching primitive skills since 1992.  He has worked as a wildlife/avian field biologist since 1985, including as Associate Director with Ozark Center for Wildlife Research for its 15-year history, as a naturalist for MO Dept. of Conservation in Branson MO for 9 years, and he is still active in contract fieldwork. His career has taken him all over the U.S./Central America and has provided a wealth of natural history knowledge.

https://firstearth.org/

“Knowledge is incomplete till it’s passed on” – Jim Fire Eagle.

Bo Brown co-founded Red Willow Primitive Skills, Inc., teaching workshops at Bo’s property on the Niangua River and First Earth Wilderness School was an outgrowth of that.  Bo presents primitive skills, nature awareness, and foraging programs for schools, museums, and nature centers around the country, including weekly skills programs and edible plant walks at Dogwood Canyon Nature Park near Blue Eye MO. He instructs at several large primitive skills gatherings around the country, and has assisted with a 2-week training course for Army Special Forces SERE School survival instructors. He is also a professional musician, performing locally and nationally in several area bands.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

For Monday, October 10th, 2022, host Brent Ragsdale will speak with his guest, Amber Dunn.   Amber says she’s behind a lot of tables at a lot of events.  Her family lives on a 40-acre building-toward-permaculture farm.  She is an industrial engineer and consults in permaculture.  On our show, Brent and Amber will open with a discussion of agrivoltaics, which combines solar panels with agricultural operations.

An agrivoltaic landscape is a combination of agriculture and photovoltaic energy generation. This is a product of the rise in renewable energy adoption that has occurred over the past 30 years as the world began its shift away from fossil fuels towards renewables.  First, we saw large wind turbines amid farm fields. Large scale photovoltaic systems on agricultural land followed.

A principle of permaculture is to design within the climatic, ecological, economic and social context within which our project exists. In order to demonstrate an early principle of permaculture, both the crop and the photovoltaic array work by converting nature’s solar energy into other forms of energy.

Agrivoltaic systems could contribute to regional energy internets where smaller renewable, distributed energy production systems feed into large-scale batteries and are linked into a regional grid for sharing and the energy surplus to regional needs sent to the national grid. Such a system could contribute to the creation of regional economies based on regional energy markets, preferably structured as not-for-profit social enterprise or energy co-operatives.

Agrivoltaics is part of a new technology of the Anthropocene, a solution providing basic human needs.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

Elaine Giessel and Debbie Neustadt will join host Craig Lubow to discuss water issues.  Elaine and Debbie serve on the Water Sentinels Committee of the Sierra Club.  We will talk about Kansas water policy, a Corp of Engineers study of water flow and non-permanent waters, redefining water jurisdiction, and whether wetlands and other waterways are under threat as a result of a pending Supreme Court case that is being argued this week.  We will also talk about water accessibility and affordability which presents an environmental equity issue.

For Monday, September 26th, 2022, host Terri Wilke will speak with her guests Michael Almon and Mike Wasikowski about electric car shows happening because of National Drive Electric Week, Sep 23-Oct 2, 2022.  National Drive Electric Week is a nationwide celebration to raise awareness of the many benefits of all-electric and plug-in hybrid cars, trucks, motorcycles, and more. Are you considering going electric?

https://driveelectricweek.org/

There will be opportunities available for everyone to see, touch, talk about and maybe even drive an electric vehicle, from buses to bikes.

Sunday, Oct. 2nd from 10 AM to PM, there is an electric car show in Lawrence KS.

Michael Almon is an electric car owner and he is a member of the Sustainability Action Network.  He has been instrumental in bringing over five electric car shows to his community.

https://www.sustainabilityaction.net/

Mike Wasikowski is an electric car owner and he is a member of the City of Lawrence’s Public Transit Advisory Committee.  He will talk about the importance of putting electric buses to use in any city.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

During our show on September 19th, host Richard Mabion will speak with Rich Gutowski.  Rich is Founder of Alveare Foundation and Alveare PBC which are focused on regionally placed based community development using public benefit corporations (PBCs) as both the tool of cross sector collaboration and the means of providing sustainable long support for community development work.

August 19, 2022, our Richard Mabion received notification from Michael Regan, EPA Administrator, that Richard will be a member of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.  They know how to pick ‘em!

The National Environmental Justice Advisory Council provides advice and recommendations about broad, cross-cutting issues related to environmental justice from all stakeholders involved in the environmental justice dialogue.  We can trust Richard to keep the interests and well-being of those who have endured injustice at the center of his discussions and recommendations.

Alveare Foundation invests in the long-term development of relationships across sector and across urban and suburban regions under the premise the nagging social issues are not the disfunction of one community but a symptom of a silo’ ed system where many well-intentioned people are disempowered from making good decisions. Alveare acts as a field catalyst to build formal and informal relationships.

Listeners may have heard prior shows presented by Richard and Rich on the topic of public benefit corporations (PBCs) and the need to create jobs and skills in low income neighborhoods.  The idea is to raise the standard of living for everyone so that each and every one of us can be comfortable and take pride in our lives.

Today we provide an overview and an update.  We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

During our show on September 12th, host Terri Wilke will speak with Billy Davies,  who is with  the Missouri Chapter of the Sierra Club. Listeners will learn about the recently approved Kansas City, Missouri Climate Protection and Resiliency Plan.

The city’s Climate Protection and Resiliency Plan has been described as a road map that will help inform municipal climate policy moving forward. The ultimate goal is for Kansas City, MO to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040.

https://www.kcmo.gov/city-hall/departments/city-manager-s-office/office-of-environmental-quality/climate-action

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

During our show on September 5th, you can hear the most recent Climate Hour podcast, Impacts of the Russo-Ukrainian War on Labor’s Climate Movement, produced by Bob Grove.

Over the past few months, we’ve seen a massive realignment of global alliances and supply chains caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. How is this impacting the U.S. labor movement and how does it affect the movement’s ability to focus on climate issues?

Join host, Bob Grove, and guests as they discuss Labor’s Climate Movement and the impacts of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Guests include:

Larry Williams Jr. – Executive Director of the Labor Network for Sustainability, Founder of UnionBase, and former Labor Coordinator for Sierra Club

Mijin Cha – Assistant Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy at Occidental College, and Fellow at the Cornell Worker Institute.

Todd Vachon – Director of the Labor Education Action Research Network at Rutgers University.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

For our show on August 22nd, we introduce listeners to the Step by Step Project.  Filmmaker and clinical psychologist Stephen Lerner and fellow filmmaker Jim Jewell have teamed up for several documentary films in the past, and now they’re joining forces once again for a project called “Step by Step.”

https://stepbystepkansas.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Step-By-Step-Kansas-102024462523886

This started in early June, 2022 and they plan to criss-cross the state of Kansas, appearing in various communities to host conversations with locals about their worries, their ideas and the actionable steps they might take to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The tour began in Lawrence on the Haskell Indian Nations University campus, with Haskell professor Daniel Wildcat playing a key role. Dan Wildcat has an extensive background in the study of climate issues and how they relate to Indigenous populations.   A problem as big and complicated as climate change is difficult to confront, and Step by Step is starting earnest conversations about the topic so that throughout Kansas.

Many worry about our changing climate. Yet most of us don’t talk about it, and only a very small minority actively work towards creating the solutions we require in order to achieve a sustainable future.  Step By Step brings people together across Kansas to have open conversations about climate change.  Sharing our thoughts with others can reduce our anxiety, and empower us both to make individual climate friendly changes, and to become more actively engaged in pushing for the public policy changes needed to meet the enormous challenge we face.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

For our show on August 15th host Brent Ragsdale speaks to Frankie Foster-Davis about tiny houses being built to assist youth aging out of foster care in Kansas.   Frankie works with Homeworks USA which is affiliated with the Bassuk Center.

https://bassukcenter.org/

Home Works USA is piloting a new housing model for emerging adults leaving foster care. This intentional community will provide stable, affordable housing along with health and mental health services, and supports for education, job training, and employment to allow them to imagine and realize their dreams.The pilot project - sited on a 25-acre private parcel in Lawrence, Kansas - will integrate solar power, onsite food gardens, and a public walking trail to create an environmentally conscious community.

https://bassukcenter.org/children-youth/homeworks-usa/

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!  We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

calendar of events for the week of 8-15-22:

Community Garden work days and farmers market info is available at https://www.cultivatekc.org/events/
As you begin planning your fall garden plantings, you can find cool-season vegetable plants at the Kansas City Community Gardens Fall Sale. For more information, contact KCCG at 816-931-3877 or KCCG. The garden is open from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. weekdays, and until 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays from August 2 – 30. It is located at 6917 Kensington Ave., Kansas City, MO.
You can request that free trees be planted in front of your house on your street parkway. Residents of Kansas City and Liberty, MO and Prairie Village, KS are eligible to receive a free street tree planted in the public parkway in front of their home. The Heartland Tree Alliance handles all tree requests, plants the trees and provides a watering bag to make it easier for residents. To get more details and apply for your tree, visit https://bridgingthegap.org/heartland-tree-alliance/treesformycity-2/

In separate programs, the city of Overland Park, KS will cover 50 percent of the cost of residential approved native tree plantings as a part of its Stormwater Cost Share Program. Apply online at https://www.opkansas.org/city-services/trees-environment/streams-watersheds/stormwater-cost-share/.

A new online Nature Stories Around the World has launched with videos of children’s nature stories being read by biologist and environmental expert Margo Farnsworth with the help of Sami Aaron, executive director of the Resilient Activist. The books are geared for children ages 4 to 10, and the site offers a reading list and nature activities to help kids connect with nature. Find story videos, nature reading lists and nature-inspired activities at The Resilient Activist.
WED, August 16th, 6:30 PM, Nature Art: Solar Print Workshop Enjoy a short nature hike to collect plant leaves, grasses and flowers, and learn how to create a solar nature print worthy of framing.The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) is offering a free Nature Art: Solar Prints workshop for adults to learn how to use nature to make cyanotypes. This photographic printing process uses the sun, plants and water to create cyan-blue prints from nature.The workshop will be held at the Anita B. Gorman Conservation Discovery Center, 4750 Troost Ave., Kansas City, MO. Register at MDC.
FRI,

For our show on August 8th host Richard Mabion speaks with three of the staff at Metropolitan Energy Center, Mary English, Program Manager, Building Performance, Brittanie Giroux, Building Performance Associate and Emily Wolfe, Sr. Program Coordinator and Policy Analyst.  Their discussion is a continuance of Richard’s idea that neighborhoods need energy rehabilitation and the people who live in our neighborhoods can be the engineers and installers of these projects.

https://metroenergy.org/

Improving the energy efficiency of a home will improve physical comfort in each season, allow the resident to gain healthier air quality and improved health, increase the property value and lower energy costs and bills. We’ve seen firsthand how communication can help Kansas and Missouri residents and businesses meet their own unique energy needs. For this reason, Metropolitan Energy Center is on EcoRadio KC to empower community members to use cleaner, and more efficient, energy solutions.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

This time it's energy!! What is hydrogen energy. What is the difference between green hydrogen, blue hydrogen, and gray hydrogen? What role should it play or will it play in replacing coal and gas? Is it safe? What is the Biden administration doing to promote hydrogen in the Inflation Reduction Act and other infrastructure bills? What is done with the waste by-products? These and more questions will be answered by Joe Spease, energy technology specialist and environmental activist, when he talks about hydrogen with host Craig Lubow.

For our show on July 25th, host Craig Lubow will speak with Hannes Zacharias.  Hannes Zacharias has some 40 years of experience in administering government at the Federal, State, County and local level.  Hannes’ career in public service began in 1979 as Asst. to the Director of Travel and Tourism for the State of Kansas.  In 1980 Hannes became a Federal Grants manager for the U.S. Dept. of Commerce and in 1981 he was serving as Associate Director and Chief Grants Officer for the Kansas Arts Commission.  Hannes began his work in local government in 1984 becoming Assistant to the City Manager for the City of Lawrence. He was named the City Administrator for Boonville, Missouri, in 1988, and then moved to Hays, Kansas, in 1992 to serve as City Manager for nine years.  He joined the Johnson County (Ks) management team in 2001 as Assistant County Manager and was promoted to Deputy County Manager in January 2005. He later became County Manager and served in that position for 9 years. In that capacity, Mr. Zacharias served as the chief administrative officer, overseeing all operations of Johnson County Government serving over 585,000 residents. He coordinated the delivery of services provided by more than 3,800 employees, and was responsible for preparing and submitting the county’s annual operating and capital budgets totaling more than $1.06 billion.  As County Manager Mr. Zacharias appointed all 19 county department directors and was accountable for organizational performance, achievement and service delivery in the daily operations of Johnson County. He was responsible for implementing policies and directives established by the Johnson County Board of Commissioners.  Upon his departure from Johnson County in 2018, Hannes embarked on his second solo kayak trip down the Arkansas River following a drop of water 2060 miles from the Continental divide in Colorado, on to the Mississippi, and concluding at Venice LA at the Gulf of Mexico.

Hannes started his position as a Professor of Practice in 2019 teaching graduate and undergraduate course and mentoring students desiring to be public administrators.

He will speak with Craig about what the river has taught him.

KKFI is supported by our listeners, local businesses and organizations that share our mission.  We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

For our show on July 18th, host Richard Mabion will speak with Bart Maffrey.  Bart Maffry founded Outside the Box Developers with the hope of adding solar to housing developments. It has become much more as solar, energy storage, EV operations and high-performance design will converge to create many advantages and cost savings, leading to the development of affordable and workforce housing at scale.

https://www.facebook.com/Outside-The-Box-Developers-110437747786981/

Bart will help bring solar manufacturing to the KC area with improved technology that will manufacture a better solar product, made, and installed locally, stimulating local economies in countless ways. Overall, it is a complex network of relationships, products, and challenges that Bart has overcome. He has assembled a development team of talented and capable folks, ready to integrate the housing market.

Rich Gutowski of Alveare Corp will also be on our show.  Rich understands the importance of preserving our neighborhood communities and how redevelopment work and the training that goes into it helps us achieve our community goals.

Build solar while building pride is our topic of discussion.

KKFI is supported by our listeners, local businesses and organizations that share our mission.  We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

For our show on July 11th, host Terri Wilke will speak with several local purveyors of bulk household products so that consumers can simply refill the empty containers we already have.

Zero waste is a set of principles focused on waste prevention that encourages the redesign of resource life cycles so that all products are reused. The goal is for no trash to be sent to landfills, incinerators or the ocean. Currently, only 9% of plastic is recycled.

Guests include:

Gabriella from Green Utopia mailto:@greenutopiaKC

Kristen Edwards from Top Off Refillery https://topoffrefillery.com/

Jasmine from Less is More https://www.facebook.com/LessIsMoreLawrence/

Megan Smith from Perennial Bee https://www.greenworkskc.org/retail/

Almost every product we use is available in bulk so that people can refill existing containers. Many grains, legumes and nuts are also available in bulk.  This show will explain how, where and why this is important. Zero waste is a perception change. It requires rethinking what we have traditionally regarded as garbage and treating all materials as valued resources instead of items to discard.

Photo by Julia Joppien on Unsplash

KKFI is supported by our listeners, local businesses and organizations that share our mission.  We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

For our show on July 4th, we bring you the most recent Climate Hour episode produced by Bob Grove.

The clothing you are wearing right now has a surprisingly large impact on our environment and climate systems. The fashion industry is responsible for 8.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Today’s combination of petroleum-based textiles and cheap, abusive labor practices has given rise to what is called Fast Fashion, an industry of poorly-made, throw-away clothing, that in turn has led to a massive environmental deluge of micropollutants and overflowing landfills.

Host, Bob Grove, and guests from the U.S., Chile and Columbia discuss the International Sustainable Fashion Movement.

Guests include:

Francisca Gajardo, Sustainable Fashion Designer and Creator of the upcycling brand Y.A.N.G.

Carolina Gaitan Montoya, Founder, La Cortisana

Eileen Bobowski, Executive Director, The Sewing Labs

Laura Treas, Founder, Fashion Tech KC

Beth Sarver, President, KC Restoration School       and

Diego Sandoval, Program Officer, International Research and Exchanges Board

You’ve heard of walking the talk?  Lying in the bed you made? How about showing your support of our planet with the shirt on your back?

KKFI is supported by our listeners, local businesses and organizations that share our mission.  We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

Host Craig Lubow will talk to Steve Melton about climate change. The discussion will include carbon tax and dividend, economic impact of climate change, and the impact of climate change on human rights and global conflict. Steve has been an activist with the Citizens Climate Lobby in Kansas City.

For our show on June 20th, host Richard Mabion will speak with Elnora Quintelle Tellis Easley Jefferson, who defines herself as a civic activist.  In 2012, along with thirteen other presidents of Northeast KCK area neighborhoods, she co-founded the Historic Northeast-Midtown Association (HNMA), a Neighborhood Business Revitalization Organization (NBR) for Northeast Kansas City, Kansas.   The HNMA service area covers approximately 11 square miles and includes the Fairfax Industrial Area and 15 neighborhood groups.   The youngest of the eight NBR’s, HNMA will celebrate its 10- year anniversary on September 21, 2022.   The area is rich in historical landmarks, districts, neighborhoods and family birthrights.  In 1939, the Fairfax Industrial District gave Kansas City, Kansas the honor of being called the state’s leading industrial center.

HNMA’s mission was to provide programs and services that enhanced the area’s ability to recover from disruption and rebuild the once thriving economy in the northeast area.  These neighborhoods were the those most negatively impacted by the injustices inflicted by the federal legislation that set the stage for local implementation of redlining and urban renewal.  The injustices resulted in outward migration, displacement of people and the necessary resources that any community needs to thrive with life and well-being.

In 2019, HNMA was selected as one of the local trusts on the Groundwork USA network.  A National Park Service and EPA resourced organization, the local trusts are organizations that in their portfolio of community, economic and human development initiatives, include brownfield reclamation and youth engagement in green technologies.

This is Elnora’s second professional career that began when in the 1990’s she took note of the gradual devastation that had occurred and continued to occur in the neighborhood of her youth.  The questions, “What happened to Mr. Carter’s house?”, “What happened to Ms. Hazel’s house?” and “Who sanctioned a toxic land field in a neighborhood area that was once complete with rolling hills and small well-kept houses?” played in her mind.  The sight of the shell of a once a proud and vibrant community where her mother stayed and did not want to leave, prompted Elnora to retire from AT&T where she had worked for 25 years as a manager of technical voice and data sales.  She saw the aftermath of outward migration, neglect, random destruction, poor stewardship of neighborhood resources and concentration of clustered poverty.   The resulting landscape, often called blight, too readily prompts the casual observer to overlook the legacy of the area, the strength in the spirit of the surviving property owners and the unspoken plea of those who would if they only could.  Elnora and her family recognized what humankind for ages has always known, that the land itself is an economic equalizer.  To this end, they initiated in neighborhood urban agriculture to feed and educate youth and families, to improve community health and well-being and to create wealth.  This included a contract with USD 500 to supply local pesticide-free vegetables for children’s lunches.

Today, the northeast area is in a state of demographic flux.  Populated by people who come from countries all over the globe, the largest immigrant population is Hispanic.

Elnora’s advocacy continues.  Her personal goal is for the northeast to become a destination spot of investment and family life.  To this end, her advocacy purports ownership, self-sustainability and the elimination of the systemic barriers that jeopardize both.

KKFI is supported by our listeners, local businesses and organizations that share our mission.  We want to send a personal thank you to each of our listeners who pledged during our pledge drive.  For our part, we pledge to share with you another great EcoRadio KC.

For our show on June 13th, are going to play the podcast from Climate Hour. The New Deal enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression and led to decades of American prosperity. That New Deal combined economic reforms with lots of new jobs in emerging sectors. And 90 years later we’re still reaping the benefits; from our interstate highway system to our monthly Social Security checks. Roosevelt’s New Deal led to what is arguably the most prosperous era in U.S. history.

Today, economists are envisioning a Green New Deal that would combine Roosevelt’s economic approach with today’s emerging technologies. In Roosevelt’s time, the emerging technologies were mass-produced autos and an interstate highway system to drive them on. Today’s emerging technologies are renewable energy and a nationwide electric grid to move that energy around.

Join Climate Hour host, Bob Grove, and guests to discuss the Green New Deal.

Guests include:

Winston Apple – Author and former member of the Democratic National Committee

Howie Hawkins – Co-founder of the Green Party and U.S. Presidential Candidate

Wendell Chris King – Retired Brigadier General, US Army and Dean Emeritus, US Army Command and General Staff College

Stephen Melton – Chapter Leader, Kansas City Citizens’ Climate Lobby

Jim Turner – Board member of the Thomas Hart Benton Group of Sierra Club and former Chair of the Missouri State Sierra Club.

KKFI is supported by our listeners, local businesses and organizations that share our mission.  We want to send a personal thank you to each of our listeners who pledged during our pledge drive.  If you still wish to give, please go to https://kkfi.org/ and hit the donate button.

Please stay tuned to hear ideas for positive change.  We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world.  Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!

This will be a great radio hour!

We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

https://kkfi.org/listen/

For our show on June 6th, we are celebrating KKFI – now is the pledge drive! Listeners are aware that EcoRadio KC is produced weekly by KKFI volunteers, and we need to ask you to support KKFI, YOUR Community Radio Station. We bring you vital information underserved or ignored by mainstream media.
We are all on-air this hour, Darnell Hunt, Terri Wilke, Richard Mabion, Brent Ragsdale and Craig Lubow. We pride ourselves on digging in and sharing the issues that entertain and inform our listeners by providing a curated, unique and independent voice. Remember, KKFI is supported by our listeners, local businesses and organizations that share our mission.
It costs at least $60 to broadcast one hour of EcoRadio KC. If you would like to own an hour of EcoRadio KC, please call us now at 888-931-0901 or go online to https://kkfi.org/ and click the donate button.
If you do this when EcoRadio is live, we get to thank you live!
Share KKFI’s mission of providing an independent voice to information underserved or ignored by mainstream media. You can become a sustaining member!
The crew of EcoRadio KC - Terri Wilke, Brent Ragsdale, Richard Mabion, Craig Lubow and Darnell Hunt will bring you excerpts from shows placed since the most recent pledge drive. You will hear about the AltEn plant in Mead NE that fouled the environment while producing ethanol. We will play information about PLAN, Planetary Limits Academic Network, which aims to raise awareness about critical challenges facing the human endeavor in this century by building a network of scholars. We will hear snippets of our shows on solar, Citizens Climate Lobby, KC Farm School and building up our inner-city communities by providing training and jobs to build a greener world. And that’s not all! So many interesting topics, so little time.
Please stay tuned to hear ideas for positive change.

We at EcoRadio KC are glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world. Our goal is to assure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future!
This will be a great radio hour!  We hope you can tune in!

George Carlin said “we (meaning people in general) are arrogant to think we (usually meaning they) are a threat to the planet. This planet put up with dinosaurs for 165 million years then waited another 65 million before putting up with people. Do any of you think people, humans, can last 165 million years?”

calendar of events for the week of 6-6-22:

A new Kansas City metro-area coalition is launching a Solarize KC initiative that will offer up to 25-percent discounts for solar and battery storage installations.  The program will provide volume discount pricing for both home and business solar installations throughout the metro area in both Missouri and Kansas. For more information, visit Solarize KC or contact Andy Savastino, KCMO chief environmental officer, 816-513-3460. https://www.solarcrowdsource.com/campaign/kansas-city/
WED, June 8th, 5 PM, Say Yes to Climate Action Rally at Kansas City, Mo., City Hall 414 E. 12th. Hosted by Sunrise Movement KC. Open to anyone.  Their simple demand to city hall: Say YES to climate action, NO to fossil fuel executives! Pass the Climate Protection & Resiliency Plan with NO edits and get to work on building a livable, just, safe future in our lifetimes!
THURS, June 9th, 7 PM, Indigenous Wisdom and Climate Change is at the Haskell Auditorium, 155 E Indian Ave, Lawrence KS. Presented by the Step By Step Project & Haskell Indian Nations University. The event is free and refreshments will be provided.
FRI, June 10th, 5 PM, Summer Bicycle Club, hosted by BikeWalkKC, a free Summer Bike Club will give kids a chance to practice their riding skills at weekly bike rides and earn a free bike, helmet and more fun gear. Lessons start and end at the Kansas City Public Library Pop In...