Sustainable Georgia

Right Whales, Sea Turtles, Hybrid Garbage Trucks, Integrative Biology and Listeners Protest This Weekend on Sustainable Georgia

2009-03-13T12:50:00.000-07:00

Sustainable Georgia airs across the state on GPB Radio at 12:30p Saturday and 4:30p Sunday. You can listen to the program on demand here, and you can also download the program as an iTunes podcast.
It's been a week with good news for coastal wildlife and next week promises to be a pivotal week in the expansion(or not) of nuclear power in Georgia. Meanwhile, Macon Georgia gets out on the cutting edge of hybrid vehicles. Melissa Stiers reports on the news that Sea Turtles have plenty of suitable nests on Tybee Island after all. Myriam Levy reports on the first successful sedation of a whale swimming free in the wild, as federal biologists sedated a Right Whale off of Daytona Beach in order to disentangle it from fishing gear.
From Macon comes word that the first hybrid-power municipal garbage truck in America will be hauling refuse through the cherry blossom city. Josephine Bennett from WMUM 89.7 FM reports.
Earth & Sky's Lindsay Patterson talks with integrative biologist Camille Parmesan, who suggests that climate change will change the rules of wildlife conservation.
Sustainable Georgia answers email from a listener in Washington County, Georgia, who favors the building of coal fired energy Plant Washington. While respectfully disagreeing with some of his assertions, we are interested in featuring a debate on the plant between two Washington County residents. Our listener can represent the Pro side. If you are interested in debating the Con side of Plant Washington and you live in Washington County, please drop us a line at gogreen@gpb.org.
Finally, we ask the question "can we all get along" by recycling a song from Johnny Clegg and Juluka, one of the great, courageous cross-cultural, cross-class artistic expressions of late 20th century. You can read more about them here.

Sierra Club of Georgia, Coal Plants, Bicycle Power, Red Snapper Ban, Marvin Gaye All On Sustainable Georgia This Weekend

2009-03-06T10:14:00.000-08:00

Sustainable Georgia is on the air on GPB Radio Saturday at 12:30p and Sunday at 4:30p after Weekend Georgia Gazette. You can also stream or download on demand here, or you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

This week on Earth News we cover Thursday night's public meeting with the Georgia EPD in Sandersville discussing the impact of building new coal-fired Plant Washington. Georgia cyclists rode to the Capital this week to rally in favor of more bike paths and trails and against a state transportation bill that has nothing in it for pedal-powered vehicles. Dave Bender reports. From Savannah comes news that Red Snapper is now forbidden to be fished out of Georgia waters. Orlando Montoya reports on this sustainable seafood story.
Believe it or not, there is a green initiative underway in NASCAR. During this week's visit to Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, the Hall of Fame Racing Team, which runs the 96 Ask.com Ford with driver and former champion Bobby Labonte, announced that they are purchasing carbon offsets to account for the carbon dioxide produced by their team on track and traveling between tracks. Sustainable Georgia dares to ask the question this week--if the good old boys in NASCAR can purchase carbon offsets, then why can't the rest of us?
Our feature interview is with Sierra Club of Georgia Organizer Erin Glynn. Glynn appeared with a Sierra Club group at the Plant Washington meeting in Sandersville, and she talks about the problems with coal plants, the realities of rural economy, and why it's in our best interest to factor in the cost of carbon emissions in anything we do. She also lets you know how to get involved with the local Sierra Club chapter in your community. Go here to find out more.
Marvin Gaye's 1971 album What's Going On was a break from the Motown tradition in many ways, not least of which was the record's topic matter, which included drugs, poverty and the Vietnam War. But most interesting to us is Mercy Mercy Me(The Ecology), which departed from Motown's standard verse-chorus-verse formula musically, and brought soul music and its audience around to the environmental message for the first time. We recycle the song to close out this week's show. Thanks for listening.

The Sky Is Falling, The Nuclear Toll Is Coming Early, and Alan Flurry Expounds On Green Skepticism On Sustainable Georgia This Weekend.

2009-02-27T13:55:00.000-08:00

Sustainable Georgia airs across Georgia on GPB Radio this weekend, after Weekend Georgia Gazette at 12:30p Saturday and 4:30p Sunday.
On Earth News we cover the Georgia Legislative vote in favor of Senate Bill 31, which will allow the utilities to pre-bill power bill rate payers for two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle. The vote came amid rising controversy over who was saving how much money on behalf of whom. You can read more about it here.
The sky really was falling over the Arctic Ocean earlier this week, as a $278 million dollar Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite failed to deploy properly after launch and crashed. Scientists lost the opportunity for some eight million daily carbon calculations daily that were to greatly inform our understanding of climate change.
On the oil front, Colonial pipeline announced that because of a decreased demand for oil that they were postponing plans to add an additional pipeline through Georgia.
This week's feature interview is with Athens-based writer Alan Flurry, whose blog What Does Green Mean and Eco Hustle column in Flagpole Magazine are both a healthy antidote to the received wisdom of both mainstream media and mainstream environmentalism. Listen in as we ponder what it means to be green, especially in Athens, a town so green there's even a tree that owns itself(pictured above). We'll close with XTC's Ball And Chain, a paean to tearing things down just to build new ones in the same place.

Greenspace, Save Our Amphibians, Aquaponics, Gray Water and Old Bob Dylan This Weekend On Sustainable Georgia On GPB Radio & Online

2009-02-21T08:17:00.000-08:00

This week on the program we look into the green aspects of the Economic Recovery Plan signed into law by President Obama on Tuesday. While their are high hopes and rhetoric about millions of jobs to be gained and thousands of tons of C02 and barrels of oil to be saved, we'll keep watch to see if Fed dollar promises make for a more sustainable Georgia.

Georgia's Regional Water Councils were announced February 14 by the Governor. The councils, organized by watershed, are political appointees charged with water resource planning, and were mandated by last year's Comprehensive Statewide Water Monitoring Plan. Some editorial writers around the state have noted with concern that environmentalists are notably absent from the list, the state's riverkeepers in particular. We recommend that you check out the list of Water Council members here and see who's making decisions on behalf of your watershed. Call them up or drop an email and let them know your concerns, whether it's point-source pollution issues, water conservation, development, or other green concerns.

Greenspace promises to tick up in Walker County and Carroll County, with initiatives this week. Edgar Treiguts reports about a proposed Chickamauga to Cloudland Canyon(pictured above) rail to trail, while the Trust for Public Land and Carroll County creatively used contributions and SPLOST money to set aside 485 acres of land along the Chattahoochee River.

Myriam Levy takes a look at aquaponics, Noel Brown focuses on Georgia's rules regarding gray water re-use, integrative biologist Tyrone Hays talks about the importance of amphibians to our long term prospects as a species, and we shine a light on Alan Flurry and his blog What Does Green Mean? Check it out. We'll talk with Alan on next week's show.

Sustainable Georgia is on the air Saturday at 12:30p and Sunday at 4:30p after Weekend Georgia Gazette on your local GPB Radio station. Also online for stream or download and available as an iTunes podcast.

Nuclear Reactors Paid In Advance, The Center For A Sustainable Coast, and Sand Hill Cranes On Sustainable Georgia This Weekend.

2009-02-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

This week the program features a feature from Orlando Montoya in Savannah about the Federal Government's new off shore energy policy. Hint--the buzz phrase "drill, baby, drill" is no longer operative. John Sepulvado drops by with a Q&A about Georgia Senate Bill 31, which is now going before the Georgia House of Representatives. The bill would allow utility companies to begin billing rate-payers for the cost of building two new reactors at Plant Vogtle years before the reactors actually go online.

Does Georgia have alternatives to nuclear power and offshore drilling? The Center for a Sustainable Coast thinks so. Their Executive Director David Kyler joins us for a conversation about studies that show that offshore wind energy could be harnessed and provide clean, non-radioactive, carbon free megawatts in the years to come.

Our Shout Out this week goes out to the Georgia Association of Floodplain Management, who met this week in Columbus. Georgia's floodplain managers keep our towns safe when the water is high, and are devoted to low impact development, greenways, and improved stormwater runoff strategies. They are unheralded workers in most cases, but they are doing good green work. Visit their site here to find out more.

Melissa Stiers drops in as the GPB Nature Watcher, taking in the annual migration of Sand Hill Cranes across our state. Catch the show on GPB Radio across the state, 12:30p Saturday and 4:30p Sunday right after Weekend Gazette.

Sustainable Georgia-Listen and Become A GPB Member, Today at 12:30p, Sunday at 4:30p

2009-02-07T07:22:00.000-08:00

Today on Sustainable Georgia we will be asking for you to support the environmental reporting and green community building that the show represents. GPB Radio is holding a brief Winter Membership Campaign that started Friday and continues through Monday, and if you listen to Sustainable Georgia and would like to support our show, please click here and renew your membership or become a new member.

In between our appeals for your support on this week's show, Myriam Levy will talk with two federal wildlife biologists about the possible re-introduction of the Florida Panther back into the Okefenokee Swamp and the adjoining Osceola National Forest. Earth & Sky's Jorge Salazar talks with Global Water Expert Peter Gleick about the water crisis affecting us all. The Sustainable Georgia Ombudsman reports on last week's mispronunciation of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. That is all. Please express your support for Sustainable Georgia by making a contribution to Georgia Public Broadcasting today. Thanks.

PFOA, Obama Stands Firm On Energy, SoutheastGreen.com, Randy Newman's homage to the Cuyahoga River Fire This Weekend on Sustainable Georgia

2009-01-30T14:04:00.000-08:00

This has been a week filled with both hope and dread for Georgians who want to see their communities green and sustainable. We’ll touch on both aspects, and hopefully leave you with more hope than dread on Sustainable Georgia. The Obama administration wasted no time on pushing forward their green initiatives with regards to energy policies and dealing with carbon in our air. We’ll have a report from NPR on that. John Sepulvado stops by to weigh in on the latest information and mis-information about Perfluoro-octanic Acid-PFOA , found in large amounts in a North Georgia water supply taken from the Conasauga River(pictured above). Meanwhile some Georgia EMC customers now have a new green energy alternative, with news that a former underwear plant has been converted into a biomass energy plant.
At a time when for profit green initiatives are proliferating and the natural skepticism of both libertarians and liberals are starting to come full circle, meeting in the middle, we’ll visit with Beth Bond from SoutheastGreen.com, an Internet start up, for-profit web site attempting to provide community resources for Southern environmentalists. On recycled music we take a listen to Randy Newman's paean to the Cuyahoga River fires of 1936-1969, Burn On.

Transportation Alternatives and Frog Calls This Weekend on Sustainable Georgia--Saturday at 12:30p and Sunday at 4:30p on GPB Radio

2009-01-23T10:40:00.000-08:00

Transportation--how we get around--is a choice. Do you ride a bike to work? Walk? Take the bus or take the train? For most of us, the answer is that we jump into our car or SUV and head on down the highway. America (and Georgia) is a car culture, and we've lived in an 'age of easy motoring,' to paraphrase J. H. Kunstler. On this week's show Edgar Treiguts looks at a new initiative by Coca Cola to deploy a fleet of electric trucks, while Josephine Bennett brings news that Macon, Georgia be a hub for high speed and commuter rail going forward.

My own easy motoring took me, along with my longtime traveling companion Dr. Roy Burke, into South Georgia for a tour of the Little Ocmulgee River Watershed back around New Year's. We took Doc's old truck through back roads through Twiggs, Telfair, Dodge and Wheeler Counties. When we would stop at a creek, river or swamp, I was surprised to hear the distinctive call of frogs in the middle of the South Georgia Winter. On this week's program we talk with DNR Senior Wildlife Biologist John Jensen about Georgia's diverse frog population. As part of the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program, or NAAMP, many Georgians volunteer to travel specific routes across our state and count the varieties and densities of Georgia frogs along the way. If you want to know if you have what it takes to identify one of our 31 native frog species, you can take the NAAMP frog quiz here. We hope you enjoy this week's program, airing Saturday at 12:30p and Sunday at 4:30p, with a rebroadcast on Tuesday night at 11:30p. You can download or stream Sustainable Georgia on your schedule by clicking here.

Million Mile Greenway, Plant Vogtle, Suniva, Inauguration Day Is Coming on Sustainable Georgia, Saturday at 12:30p, Sunday at 4:30p

2009-01-15T13:17:00.000-08:00

Green Space. If you live on a sod farm in Telfair County Georgia, just a little outside of Rhine off of a sandy unpaved county road, it’s no big deal. It’s green as far as your eyes can see in the morning. If you live in one of Georgia’s urban areas, the infamous Atlanta exurbs, for example, Green Space isn’t as easy to come by. This week on Sustainable Georgia we talk with Jim Langford, a Georgia Bulldog, Harvard MBA, and an environmentalist who is leading an organization called Million Mile Greenway, and their attempt to support efforts across Georgia to preserve a few patches of unspoiled land from the bulldozer’s maw.

Governor Perdue’s State of the State address this week shined a light on Suniva, a Georgia company on the cutting edge of alternative energy and the green economy. Susanna Capelouto takes a look at what they’re doing. John Sepulvado reports that environmentalists are opposing a water conservation plan in Atlanta. And in the spirit of Wimpy and Popeye, Georgia energy companies will gladly bill you today for nuclear reactors that won’t be online for several years. Mary Ellen Cheatham reports on this week's Plant Vogtle hearings at the Public Service Commission.

It's week of arctic cold and high hopes in Georgia, as a distinctly new American administration gets sworn in next Tuesday. In the days to come, environmentalists in Georgia and elsewhere will look for President Obama to give more than lip service to Mother Nature, alternative energy, and the green economy.

Local Food, Halloween Darter Discovered, Savannah Is Greener, and Thelonius Monk on Sustainable Georgia Saturday 12:30p-Sunday 4:30p

2009-01-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

Are we really what we eat? Do our daily choices for breakfast, lunch and dinner have hidden costs that don’t ring up at the cash register? We’re not just talking triglycerides and chemical additives, either. The average food item in your local grocery store traveled some 1500 miles to reach your town. You can look it up. Is that really sustainable? We’ll dig into local food this week with Mike Gilroy from the Sustainable Grower’s School in Carrollton and talk about how growing your own makes economic and ecological sense. This takes in Community Gardens, Urban Gardens, Cooperative Agriculture, and maybe starting a local farmers market in your downtown. In Georgia earth news this week, the drought seems to be abating and a new fish species has been discovered in the Chattahoochee and Flint River Systems. Dave Bender reports as coal power in Georgia takes a hit, and Orlando Montoya brings news that Savannah gets a little greener. We give a shout out to Nuci’s Space, which helps sustain Georgia musicians.

Regarding the sustainability of the Athens Music Scene, Linda Phillips and her family started Nuci’s space as a response to the tragic suicide of her son Nuci, a student and musician at the University of Georgia in the mid 1990’s. Nuci’s space continues on today as a support and resource center dedicated to promoting the emotional, physical and occupational well-being of the music community. With a staff of musicians, under the guidance of founder Linda Phillips, the center provides a stable caring environment, and health care options for musicians, who don’t typically carry health insurance. Northern Alabama touchstones and Athens emigres Drive By Truckers play an annual benefit show for Nuci’s Space each year. This year’s performance also features The Whigs and takes place at the Fabulous 40 Watt club in Athens on Thursday night, January 15. You can support Nuci’s space by attending the rock show, or you can support them and learn more online by going to their website, linked above.

Sustainable culture has to be part of the puzzle, don’t you think? Things like mountain music, the Swamp Gravy saga, the long leaf pine ecosystem poetry of Janisse Ray, Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden and Eddie Martin’s Pasaquan —sustaining music and art and culture are just as important as the Hallowen Darter, for my dime. This week's show goes out with Rocky Mount, NC Native Thelonious Sphere Monk's "Straight, No Chaser." I hope you enjoy it. Thanks to Myriam Levy, Dave Bender, Orlando Montoya, Kevin Sanders and Tom Barclay for helping produce Sustainable Georgia this week.

Biodiesel, Particulates Amok in Augusta and Columbus, Sustainable Humans With Foodbanking This Week on Sustainable Georgia

2008-12-24T06:06:00.001-08:00

We take time during the holiday season this week to break bread with Bill Bolling, founder of the Atlanta Community Food Bank and a pioneer of the food banking concept. The current economy has food banks across the state dealing with higher demand and rapidly emptying shelves with which to meet this demand. Bill talks about why we need to help our neighbors, what he would tell Barack Obama to do, and how environmentalists and hunger and anti-poverty activists share common ground. If you would like to help one of the nine regional Georgia food banks, you can go here.

Sol Invictus, Mother Nature's Lobbyist, Obama's Green Team, and Count Basie On Sustainable Georgia Sunday at 4:30p and Online at gpb.org/gogreen.

2008-12-19T08:22:00.000-08:00

Programming Note: Sustainable Georgia's Saturday broadcast is preempted again this week for live coverage of the Metropolitan Opera Matinee. We'll air Sunday at 4:30pm following Weekend Gazette.

We celebrate the Winter Equinox this week on Sustainable Georgia with hopes for rebirth, and longer Spring days to come.

Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Sally Bethea(pictured above) checks in on this week's show to talk about the highs and lows of fighting the good fight for Georgia's watersheds. She will be actively lobbying the state legislature when it cranks up in a few weeks. If you want to know where your local legislator stands on environmental issues, you can read the Georgia Conservation Voters 2007-2008 Legislative Scorecard linked to here. As Sally points out in our interview, legislators don't hear from their constituents as much as they do from lobbyists and business interests. A spare word or note from you about the importance of considering Mother Nature ahead of the Fortune 500 could make a difference.

Dave Bender reports that the planned coal-fired energy plant for Early County Georgia has been back-burnered by Dynegy, the Houston company that was financing the bulk of it. We report on what that means for the environment, and what it means for people in Early County who had been hoping for new jobs and tax revenue.

Our shout out this week goes to the Mother Nature Network. MNN is a brainchild of Chuck Leavell, keyboardist, Twiggs County tree farmer, friend of GPB and a friend of the Earth. We recommend you check out their site.

Is Cheap Gasoline Bad For Georgia? Find The Price of Energy Complacency On Sustainable Georgia-4:30p Sat and Sun

2008-12-12T11:37:00.000-08:00

Is cheap gasoline good for the country? If we taxed fossil fuels at a rate high enough to discourage their consumption would we get on the alternative fuel tip sooner? It's a hard question to ponder, particularly in a tough economy. But Georgians, like the rest of the country, are at risk of falling into energy complacency. The Wall Street crash and Main Street struggles could set back energy alternatives. On this weekend's program we're joined by Sustainable Georgia Energy Policy Wonk Jay Hakes. Hakes, who is director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta, worked as the head of the Energy Information Administration in the Department of Energy under Bill Clinton from 1993-2000. We'll talk about energy complacency, whether the auto industry can re-tool for a new energy paradigm, and how much political capital Barack Obama will be willing to spend on green issues come January.

In Earth News, Mary Ellen Cheatham reports on the latest plans afoot to recycle spent nuclear fuel at the Savannah River Plant outside of Augusta. Some punk shot an American Bald Eagle outside of Tifton and we encourage our listeners their to call the DNR Wildlife Turn In Poacher hotline. The EPA now has a Ten Most Wanted Environmental Crime Fugitives List. And the 1071 Coalition has formed to advocate on behalf of Lake Lanier.

Right Whales, Wrong Solar Strategy, Sunday at 4:30p on Sustainable Georgia

2008-12-05T11:12:00.000-08:00

Note: Sustainable Georgia will not air on Saturdays for a few weeks as we step aside for the live broadcasts of The Metropolitan Opera on GPB Radio. The program will continue to air Sundays at 4:30pm and Tuesday nights at 11:30pm. You can also download or stream the program on demand at here.

Sustainability Pioneer, Guru, Architect and Venture Capitalist William McDonough was in Atlanta this week, as part of the Arthur Blank Family Foundation's Speaker Series. GPB and Sustainable Georgia were proud to partner with them on the event bringing McDonough to town. We will be posting his remarks in one form or another, so watch this space for details. We'll also focus on his Cradle To Cradle initiative as time goes forward. One of McDonough's points in his talk, among many, was that he is a big supporter of nuclear power--nuclear fusion coming from the sun. That's to say he favors the solar energy, the original nuclear power. There are a number of reasons that the solar energy industry is growing by 25% this year when many other businesses are hurting. It's clean, it's free from the source, and it comes without a carbon footprint. We're at a point where the cost of photo voltaic solar arrays and their affiliated technology and hardware is going to begin to drop, even as utilities and businesses using traditional fossil fuel-extracting and burning technologies incur increased real and environmental costs.
Duke Power in North Carolina started an innovative program in the past year in which they are deploying solar arrays to their customers, allowing their customers to generate their own power. In other states both government and utilities are making real steps towards harnessing solar. In Georgia, not so much. As Myriam Levy reports this week on the program, Georgia Power is offering a limited green option, but as a company is not betting on solar energy playing a major role in Georgia. We encourage you to go to their website here and learn about what commitment they do have to green energy. In the story, we name-check both Southface Energy Institute and One World Sustainable as additional resources if you're ready to start powering your house with the original nuclear energy.
The Right Whales are back along the Georgia Coast, calving and spuming and otherwise enjoying our sunny Southern waters. We report on the new rule starting December 9, which forces large ships to slow down when sailing through the whales' migratory path.
Our Shout Out this week goes to Robert Whelchel, a Gainesville High School senior who just picked up his 4th, yep 4th, regional student Emmy Award. His psa is entitled Lake Lanier 2008 and encourages water conservation. You can watch it here.
We lean on Deborah Byrd and our friends at Earth & Sky for this week's interview with Marine Biologist Felicia Coleman, who talks about the impact of upriver development on our ocean's health. She specifically talks about the impact of Georgia's water crisis and the diminished flow of the Chattahoochee, Flint and Apalachicola Rivers and its effect on the oyster beds of Apalachicola Bay.
Recycled music goes old school Crosby & Nash to celebrate the return of the Right Whales with the title track to their 1979 LP Wind On The Water. We wouldn't want to celebrate the wrong ones, would we?

Sustainable Small Towns and Environmental Impacts of The Mortgage Crisis in Georgia, Sunday at 4:30p and online at gpb.org/gogreen

2008-11-28T07:15:00.000-08:00

This week's edition of Sustainable Georgia considers the notion that places should be sustainable, as much as land or natural resources. Billy Parrish is the Director of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs Office of Downtown Development. As such, he's charged with helping sustain Georgia's small towns, dealing with such issues as historic preservation, local tourism, local food, and sustainable economic development. We'll talk about brownfield and grayfield redevelopment, Georgia's eco-tourism initiatives, and why the people living and working to make Georgia's small towns more livable and sustainable aren't worried about "two Georgias." They are more interested in the fact that we have many Georgias, all of them liveable in their own way.

On Earth News this week, Dave Bender takes a look at a new biomass energy plant in South Georgia. The collapse of residential real estate development is having environmental consequences that are turning mortgage bankers into erosion control experts (whether they like it or not).

Plant Washington Resources Pro And Con

2008-11-26T07:00:00.000-08:00

We've had a number of responses to our interview with Altamaha Riverkeeper President Deborah Sheppard last weekend concerning the proposed coal burning Plant Washington in Washington County, GA. The local group opposing the plant is called Fall Line Alliance For A Clean Environment (FACE). You can reach them at 478-553-9151. GreenLaw is another Georgia advocacy group who opposes new coal fired plants in Georgia. They can be reached online at green-law.org.

The EMC cooperatives who want to build the plant also make their case for energy efficiency and "cleaner" coal technology and their reasons for building the plant at their advocacy site power4georgians.com. We encourage you to educate yourself from a variety of sources. Sustainable Georgia will continue to follow events concerning Plant Washington going forward.

Altamaha Riverkeeper Opposes Plant Washington, Record Drought Continues, and The Balanescu Quartet This Weekend On Sustainable Georgia

2008-11-21T12:25:00.000-08:00

One of the great challenges before us as a civilization is how to come up with a way to fuel our machines in ways that don’t despoil the environment, compromise our immune systems, or bankrupt our economy. That’s a tough nut to crack, and just because the price of gasoline has dropped to under two dollars a gallon does not mean that we can forget about the challenge. For example, if you were designing and building an electricity-generating plant in 2008 would you be building one that burns coal to accomplish that?

On Georgia Earth News this week we feature the return of Pierre Howard to the helm of the Georgia Conservancy, bankrupt developers winning court fights along the coast, and positive changes in green building standards. Isla Earth brings word of sustainable house trailers in Mississippi. We’ll check in with Altamaha Riverkeeper Executive Director Deborah Sheppard about a controversial coal-fired energy plant slated for Washington County and it’s possible effects on the Oconee Watershed, a watershed currently suffering the effects of a drought that has water levels across the state at record lows . In spite of it all, we hope you have much to be thankful this thanksgiving week, and that Sustainable Georgia is one more of those things.

This week’s Sustainable Georgia Shout Out goes to the Center For A Sustainable Coast, whose Executive Director David Kyler took us to task this week in an email, complaining that we're giving short shrift to the potential for wind energy generation off of the Georgia Coast. We’ll take that issue up in a future program. The Center For A Sustainable Coast, based in St. Simons Island, has fought coastal development, and has fought offshore oil drilling off the east coast. This past Spring, Common Cause honored Kyler and the Center as part of their annual Democracy Awards. Like Common Cause, The Center for A Sustainable Coast is dedicated to holding those in power accountable. While their latest battle against the Cumberland Harbour was lost in the courts this week, as we noted in Earth News, the Center For A Sustainable Coast will continue to fight to protect the tidal marshes of the Georgia Coast.

Our recycled music this week is from the Balanescu Quartet.

Recycled Cars, Green Cemeteries, Frog Watchers and Joni Mitchell This Weekend on Sustainable Georgia

2008-11-14T11:54:00.000-08:00

Junkyards, scrapyards, auto salvage yards--You might not think so, but they were recycling before recycling was cool. In fact, automobiles are recycled at a rate higher than paper, plastic, aluminum, glass or electronic goods. This week on Sustainable Georgia we talk with Steve Levetan, Senior Vice President of Pull-A-Part, a ten-state automobile recycling operation. Levetan, whose family started in the scrap iron business in Atlanta in 1919, has worked for nearly 40 years in business and in public policy to create solid waste policies in Georgia that have left us with less clutter and a more pleasing environment to look at. For that and more, Levetan was named the Keep Georgia Beautiful Man of The Year. We'll talk with him about recycling, solid waste, and the future of the automobile in our car-culture.
On Earth News we talk about Georgia DNR's search for frog surveyors to help count Georgia's frog population. T. Boone Pickens is slowing down his alternative fuel plan now that oil is cheap again. And Josephine Bennett reports that if you want to be buried in a 'green' cemetery, then don't plan to rest in peace in Macon.
Our shout out goes to the Live Oak Library System, based in Savannah, which is building a green LEED-certified building at their newest branch.
Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi was too hard to resist as a recycled music cut. We hope the public radio audience can tolerate a single, just this once.
Sustainable Georgia airs Saturdays at 12:30p, Sundays at 4:30p and Tuesday nights at 1:30p. You can also listen on demand online by going here.

Climate Change and Fall Colors, Eco-Villages, Nuclear Power, Food Banks, e-Peanuts and Vince Guaraldi This Weekend On Sustainable Georgia

2008-11-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

The winds of change are blowing across the nation and right here at home. This week on Sustainable Georgia in Earth News we'll look at what Obama the candidate promised to do about environmental issues versus the agenda he will push as president. A UGA scientist has research that shows Georgia climate change has pushed back the peak of Fall colors by a couple of weeks. The Georgia Public Service Commission is beginning a series of hearings about whether or not to allow Georgia Power and other state utilities coops to build the first new reactors to be approved and built since the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. The two reactors would be built at Plant Vogtle in Burke County.

In our feature interview we talk with Myra Bales and Architect and Designer Greg Ramsey with Village Habitat Design. Bales is trying to create a sustainable cooperative Eco-Village in Carroll County. Village Habitat Design is a leader in Conservation Community design that's worked on such notable Atlanta-area communities as Lake Claire Co-Housing and East Lake Commons.

Our shout out goes to Georgia's Food Banks, who are low on food with high demand in a weak economy. Please do what you can to support them by going here.

With news that 1964-era vintage Peanuts cartoons have been animated and are available for download for your iPod or mobile device, we decided to celebrate change this week by ending the show with Vince Guaraldi's best known Peanuts song Linus and Lucy, suitable for dancing atop your dog house.

Energy Independence, Carbon Footprint Travel Guilt, and Huey Long This Weekend On The Election Day Edition Of Sustainable Georgia

2008-10-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

As we hurtle towards Election Day on Tuesday, the conversation about national security is strangely absent from the debate. Environmental issues have also slipped under the tide of tax cut sound-bytes washing through these final days before the vote. But there may be no more important issue in front of us as a state and as a nation than energy independence. If we’re relying less on foreign oil, then we are a safer country, and a more sustainable country. Americans cut our use of foreign oil by more than half in the late 1970’s. What will it take to do that again? On this week's Sustainable Georgia we’re going to re-air an earlier interview with Jimmy Carter Library Director Dr. Jay Hakes about his book A Declaration of Energy Independence. The discussion encompasses history, public policy, and the differences between the two major candidates on energy policy and what that bodes for our future foreign oil consumption.

Atlanta-based UPS Corporation spends a lot of time thinking and engineering ways to save gallons of fuel every trip down your block. We'll hear from NPR and Melissa Stiers about their latest wrinkle, a hydraulic-hybrid truck that uses hydraulic pumps and hydraulic storage tanks to capture and store energy, similar to what is done with electric motors and batteries in a hybrid electric vehicle. In this case, the diesel engine is used to periodically recharge pressure in the hydraulic propulsion system. Fuel economy is increased in three ways: vehicle braking energy is recovered that normally is wasted; the engine is operated more efficiently, and the engine can be shut off when stopped or decelerating.

The Sustainable Georgia Shout Out this week goes to Keep Georgia Beautiful’s Man of The Year, Steve Levetan. Isla Earth reveals new lighting technology that uses old world ideas. Travel Experts Rick Steves and Tony Wheeler discuss world travel and carbon footprint guilt. And, we’ll recycle an old Huey Long campaign song to pump everyone up for Election Day.

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

2008-10-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

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.

Corn Ethanol, The EcoFocus Film Festival, and World Party All Featured On The Fall Membership Campaign Edition of Sustainable Georgia This Week

2008-10-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

Sustainable Georgia this week takes up a big chunk of our time to ask you for your support for GPB Radio during our Fall Membership Campaign. As public broadcasters, we have to get the largest percentage of our funding for programming from you. That includes everything from the cost of rights to Morning Edition and A Prairie Home Companion to the salaries of everyone at GPB Radio. So if you did not call in or log on when prompted during the show, please click here and support Sustainable Georgia and GPB. We have some nifty 'green' thank you gifts, including the chance to have a tree planted in honor of a loved one. If you like what we are trying to do with Sustainable Georgia, please show your support. It means a lot.

This week, in between the emotional appeals for your support, we'll cover the opening of a new corn ethanol plant in Camilla, and feature Rickey Bevington's interview with Courtney Gale, an anti-development activist featured in the documentary Carving Up Oconee, which will be featured in next week's EcoFocus Film Festival in Athens. That event, presented by the UGA Odum School of Ecology, will feature a number of films primarily screened at Cine, in Chronic Town. Rickey wants to give a special shout out to Michael Cardin and Carl Zornes in Athens for their help with the interview.

Recycled music this week dips back into the 1980's, for Karl Wallinger's World Party and the title track to their 1986 album (remember those?) Private Revolution.

Sustainable Georgia This Week-James Glave's Eco Shed, Sunbelt Ag Expo, Little Feat Covers Woody Guthrie

2008-10-10T12:26:00.001-07:00

This week on Sustainable Georgia we catch up with James Glave, who has written a wise and funny book called Almost Green-How I Saved 1/6th of a Billionth of the Planet. The book is ostensibly about Glave's attempt to embrace sustainable design by building an Eco Shed adjacent to his home (pictured above). But the book is also about his attempts to seek out a green path for himself and his young family and it's filled with the truths and the contradictions rife when you decide to 'go green.'
In Georgia Earth News comes word that Fireman's Fund Insurance has become the first home insurance company in Georgia to offer a green homeowners policy that will will enable Georgia homeowners with conventional homes to rebuild to the latest environmental standards after a loss. While this seems an innovative and helpful idea on the surface, we live in a time when everyone has a green angle to play. It's up to you to weigh the costs and issues and decide whether you think an idea is green, or greenwashing.
Our Sustainable Georgia Shout Out goes to the venerable Sunbelt Ag Expo, taking place October 14-16 at Spence Field in Moultrie, Georgia. For the 31^st year in a row, Farmers will gather on 700 acres just outside of Moultrie at Spence Field to kick tractor tires, compete for livestock prizes, and stroll grounds filled with more threshers, balers, irrigation rigs, and other machinery then you could possibly imagine until you’ve beheld it. From the stock dog competition to the Mennonite women selling pound cake by the slice, the Sunbelt Ag Expo is great fun for farmers and vicarious farmers alike.This year’s event includes demonstrations of such green initiatives as an Auburn University truck that runs on wood chips, organic gardening, and a humane predator program teaching new methods for controlling armadillos, opossums and other critters.
Recycled music comes courtesy of Little Feat, and their version of "This Land Is Your Land."

You Don't Need A Weatherman To Tell Which Way The Wind Blows-Wind Power Pros and Cons This Week on Sustainable Georgia

2008-10-04T07:48:00.000-07:00

Sustainable energy and alternative fuels can be a thicket of lofty promises and unanticipated consequences. Much has been made in recent times about the possibilities of wind-generated energy in America. T. Boone Pickens is the most recent high profile convert, filling up commercial media with messages about harnessing the energy of America's Midwestern 'wind belt.' At the same time, over half of our states have passed laws or plans mandating increasing percentages of alternative energy production going forward, most of those leaning heavily on wind energy. While Georgia is not expected to be a major player in wind (biomass alt-fuels are our best bet), we need to watch this issue closely.

Our feature interview this week on Sustainable Georgia is with The Atlantic Magazine Staff Editor Matthew Quirk, who has an excellent piece on wind energy in the October issue of the magazine (John McCain is on the cover). Quirk discusses the major issues affecting the success of wind energy initiatives, mostly centering around challenges of transmission and the innate variability of wind. His cautionary message for T. Boone Pickens and the rest of us is that just like the corn ethanol boom, bust, and unintended consequences, wind energy has definite pluses and definite minuses.

In Earth News this week we check in with the PATH Foundation, which has extended the Silver Comet bike trail all the way to the Alabama border to link up with that state's Chief Ladiga trail. GPB's Edgar Treiguts attended the opening celebration of the linkup and lets us know about this great resource in Northwest Georgia.

Our Shout Out this week goes to Fort Benning, which evades military stereotypes by winning a major award from the State DNR P2AD Program for being a good, sustainable, green citizen in Columbus.

Recycled music features Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band with the title track from his 2000 release The Mountain, a song about Appalachian coal miners. Let us know what you think about the show, suggestions for a Shout Out to your community, or good interview subjects. You can post here or email us at gogreen@gpb.org.

Community Supported Agriculture, Energy Independence and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band Featured This Week On Sustainable Georgia

2008-09-26T07:23:00.001-07:00

Sustainable Georgia celebrates the Autumnal Equinox and bemoans gas lines this week in a broadcast-online pinata bursting with good stuff, including Josephine Bennett's feature on Davis Farms, the Community Supported Agricultural(CSA) project in Roberta, Georgia. We talk about the indirect cost of oil (among other things) with Jay Hakes, Director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, about his new book A Declaration of Energy Independence. Keely Walker from GPB TV's Georgia Outdoors drops by to talk about their upcoming season premiere next week and give some trenchant facts about fire ecology. The Isla Earth feature covers ongoing developments in the attempt to find a greener form of jet fuel. And recycled music rolls out at the end of this week's program with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and their cover of Marvin Gaye's Mercy Mercy Me(The Ecology). Let us know what you think by posting here, or email to gogreen@gpb.org.