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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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?