Category Archives: Podcasts

More butts on bikes

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Bike ride

The Shift Up Bicycle Podcast is about getting “more butts on bikes” and recently launched a series called “Bridging the Gap” to discuss the issues facing female and female-identifying cyclists. As of now, 75% of trips by bike are taken by males, and since human-powered transit is an important part of a solarpunk future, growing the number of trips taken by bike is critical, especially for underrepresented communities.

Arleigh, AKA Bike Shop Girl, meets with guests each week to talk shop, discuss advocacy tactics, and encourage people to find ways to bring more people into the cycling fold. You can find more information at her new website, Bike Here, which is particularly aimed at the new cyclist.

Some other great resources for both new and veteran cyclists are Just Ride by Grant Petersen, and Bikenomics by Elly Blue. Just Ride is a refreshing take on the important parts of riding a bike, dispensing with the helmet and Lycra-clad image that intimidates many new cyclists. Bikenomics makes a case for how bicycle infrastructure can quickly pay for itself by increased economic activity and wellness. I’ll add them to the Resources Page, but you might also want to cruise around Microcosm Publishing as a lot of their books and zines are particularly applicable for solarpunks regardless of your interest in bikes.

Image is “Bike ride” by Jaime González via a CC-BY 2.0 License

Urban Ore – What the future of Zero Waste looks like

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The Institute for Local Self Reliance podcast recently chatted with the founders of Urban Ore in Berkley about how they divert waste from the landfill and are able to make a living from the old adage: “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

While a lot of what Urban Ore sells is architectural salvage, they also have clothing, books, sporting goods, and many other items. Urban Ore mostly gets their salvage from the municipal waste stream in Berkley, so it’s an interesting case study in better ways to manage garbage in an urban environment. It makes a true Zero Waste future not seem so crazy after all for us solarpunks.

Urban Ore also has a really interesting employment compensation structure where everyone, including the owners, gets an hourly wage. The base wage depends on the job employee does, but they make more on top of that based on sales pro-rated to how much they were working that week. No specific commissions are given, just a profit sharing bonus tabulated each week. I think this is a good company to look at for ways to plan equitable compensation for solarpunk jobs.

For other interesting podcasts, check out the Resources page.

Have you heard of any other groups or companies doing similar work? Sound off in the comments!

Team Human discusses AI and consciousness (podcast suggestion)

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Are you a solarpunk wondering, “Am I using technology, or is it using me?” If so, Team Human is the podcast for you. Every week, Douglas Rushkoff meets with guests to discuss what it means to be human in the digital age.

If you’re concerned about AI, consciousness, and how artists can relate to technology, the discussion with Kenric McDowell from Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence group will be right up your alley. If that’s not your thing, check out their archive of other shows.

I really love the way Team Human remains positive about technology while still being critical. Technology can be a great tool, but we need to make sure we’re using it as a tool, and not becoming tools for the technology. One of the things that is a repeating theme is that the internet held so much promise but then was invaded by corporate interests who turned it into an advertising platform. While some people say you should unplug if you are worried about privacy and manipulation through the internet, that isn’t really a reasonable option for most people. Team Human is here to help us navigate the murky waters of humans and machines working together.

Do you listen to Team Human? If so, what episodes would you recommend? For more podcasts I think solarpunks would find interesting, check out the Resources page!

 

 

Solarpunk and how climate affects diet

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Climate One is an excellent podcast put out by the Commonwealth Club of California on a weekly basis that I would recommend to all solarpunks. It features luminaries discussing the environment regarding our energy and water future. The most recent episode, “Climate on Your Plate,” is a remix of several previous episodes on the subject of climate change and our food systems.

One of the main takeaways that I think is surprising for most people concerned with environmental sustainability is that grazing animals can be an important component to sequestering carbon and rehabilitating our farmlands. Nicollete Hahn Niman, author of “Defending Beef,” points out that grazing animals have always been an integral part of the nutrient cycles of grasslands. Mismanagement of animal agriculture (see CAFOs) has played an important role in climate change and the reduction of ecosystem vitality in soils. While Kip Andersen, director of “Cowspiracy,” disagrees with the entire concept of animal agriculture, he and NRDC Food and Agriculture Director Jonathan Kaplan agree that eating less meat is a win for the planet.

While eliminating meat from your diet completely might be difficult or impossible based on a number of factors including health and social customs, Brian Kateman, President of the Reducetarian Foundation, suggests that everyone can lower their meat usage a little which can help the Earth a lot. One of the main tools towards this end is implementing “Meatless Mondays” where you eat no meat on Mondays and the rest of the week is up to you.

Also discussed is the role of GMOs and organic food in the development of sustainable agriculture. One of the main dangers of current commercial farming is the overuse of pesticides like glyphosate, a.k.a. Roundup. This often gets lumped in with the use of GMOs as many of them do currently come bundled with pesticide use (Roundup Ready), but GMOs are a technology that is unfairly vilified by many environmentalists. While the overuse of pesticides is dangerous, appropriate use of GMOs to reduce water and pesticide use in organic farming operations is possible.

TL;DR: Cows and GMOs aren’t the problem, the industrial food complex is. To learn more check out “Climate on Your Plate,” a podcast from Climate One.