E-Waste, Dystopia, Local Food Success In Carroll County and Kumbaya All On Sustainable Georgia This Weekend On GPB Radio

Tom Braziel is a Georgia-born writer now teaching at the University of Cincinnati, his first novel, Birmingham, 35 Miles is an entertaining but grim dystopian story about the Alabama of the year 2045, when climate change has rendered the American Southeast a windswept desert where people only go out at night because of deathly UV rays from the sun and the only job left is itinerant clay mining, and the people left there are trapped in the Southeast Desert and kept by the government at gunpoint away from the Saved Lands north of Birmingham, where its rumored that grass still grows and white puffy clouds still exist. It’s a compelling, quick read, and a great first novel, as cautionary in its own way as anything by Ray Bradbury or Philip K Dick.

While fiction is often a great foreshadowing of real life, Braziel's sort of doomsday scenario doesn’t seem imminent, although recent news about polar ice regions melting permanently should give us pause to consider what might be next. But while you can’t interrupt climate change by yourself overnight, you can keep from throwing toxic heavy metals into your local landfill, and by extension, your water supply. That might help. On Sustainable Georgia this week we talk about e-waste with green entrepreneur Michael Head from Georgia E-Waste. Isla Earth discusses whether sharks are more dangerous for humans or vice-versa. Our shout out goes to The Grower’s School in Northwest Georgia and their great local food success in Carroll County. For recycled music we’ll all join hands and sing Kumbaya. So there it is, dystopia on one end and Kumbaya on the other. Let us know what you think of the show. It airs Saturday at 12:30p, Sunday at 4:30p, Tuesday at 11:30p on GPB Radio. Available always online here.