A food forest is a public green space where anyone can come, and not only enjoy relaxing among the trees and flowers, but where anyone can pick and eat the fruit from the trees, and harvest herbs, flowers and other fresh produce. Food forests require people in a caring community, who are willing to put in the hard work of creating the space, and maintaining it for the enjoyment of others. In this program, you’ll meet two remarkable people who are instrumental in creating food forests, one in Austin, Texas, and the other in the Bronx, New York.

Water is a blessing to all living things. But water also can be dangerous and deadly, in the form of catastrophic flooding. When there is very little water, resulting droughts lead to loss of life. These types of events have been occurring with increasing frequency in recent years. For these reasons, and many more, managing water resources, including rivers and reservoirs, is essential. That requires having real-time data to work with, and that is the work of a company called Divirod. In this program, you’ll hear from the company’s CEO and founder, Dr. Javier Marti.

Herbicide-Free Campus is an organization that provides students with the tools and resources to eliminate synthetic herbicide use on their school or college campuses. It is a movement that began in 2017, with two students at the University of California at Berkeley, and has spread to campuses around the U.S. Their aim is to push for change to organic land management, to protect human and animal health, and to protect the environment. In the process, Herbicide-Free Campus is creating and empowering the next generation of environmental leaders. In this Mothering Earth episode, my guest is a great example of this; a young woman who cares deeply about the environment, and who dedicates time and energy to work for organic land care at the university she attends in Atlanta, Georgia.

Enjoying that salad, or anticipating that yummy apple? Thank a pollinator! Almost all the fruits and vegetables and legumes we eat every day require pollination, and that requires pollinators. Pollinators come in a variety of sizes, colors, and species, but in general they are insects of one kind or another. We think of bees as pollinators, but there are other insects that contribute to the essential process of pollination. In this program, we delve into the magical and important work that pollinators do every day.

Most people enjoy listening to birdsong, or watching birds in an outdoor space, as they go about finding food and water, and making nests where they will raise their babies. There are things you can provide for birds which will make them more likely to hang around in your yard or even your apartment balcony. That’s what we learn in this program with master naturalist Bonnie Tull, who has expertise on attracting birds.

Power generation and transportation are huge contributors to climate change, but did you know that what we eat every day is also a big contributor to damaging carbon emissions? Yet this problematic area is seldom talked about. There is plenty of scientific evidence that shows the damaging effects on human health and on the environment, of a diet heavy on red meat and refined grains. The EAT-Lancet commission, composed of distinguished scientists from all parts of the world, reported on the effect of diet on the environment, and notes that without changes to world dietary patterns, we will fail to meet Paris Agreement goals on emission reduction. The commission details a healthy diet based largely on fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes and nuts. The recommended diet would greatly reduce environmental damage. Dr. Walter Willett, a co-chair of the commission talked with me about the report, which has, not surprisingly, seen a lot of opposition from the beef and cattle industry.

Imagine a day when your trash contains only a few items. Instead of a large, heavy, bursting bag that you carry out to the curb, your bag is small and lightweight. That’s a goal we can all work toward, because landfills are full, and the ocean is polluted with plastics and other human produced trash. Our atmosphere is polluted with the gases from landfills, gasses such as methane which is a highly potent greenhouse gas, but also carbon dioxide, sulfides and ammonia. Each one of us is personally responsible for producing “trash”, so it’s up to each of us to reduce the amount of trash we produce. In this Mothering Earth program, you’ll find ways to do just that.

As cities grow, people in them yearn for parkland and green spaces where they can connect with nature. In the city of San Marcos, Texas, citizens got together and formed a group with a mission of creating a belt of green spaces around the city, a greenbelt. Their story is both powerful and inspirational.

Permaculture is a way of growing food that works with nature, to minimize waste and to use energy, water and human labor efficiently. It requires careful observation of the natural landscape, to determine how to best use the available water, land, sunlight and climate to achieve abundant harvests. In this program you’ll meet a remarkable woman, Rosemary Morrow, who has taught permaculture principles literally all over the world, and who has adapted them to work in war-torn places, and even in refugee camps.

Hemp is a plant that can be grown sustainably, and that has a wide variety of uses from food to clothing, to car parts. and even walls for your house. Despite many positives, hemp's reputation remains clouded by years of incorrectly regarding hemp as the same plant as marijuana. It is a cannabis plant, but it does not contain high levels of THC, which is what makes marijuana a drug. In this program, you'll hear about hemp's checkered past, and its bright future.