Gulf Streams

Today we're chatting with Chris Wood and Ashley Fitzpatrick of Moonshot Compost, along with Kristianna Bowles of Rice University, to talk all about compost: what it is, how it works, and how you can do it at home or encourage your neighbors and colleagues to compost collectively. 

In this show we feature two stories concerning research initiatives around the Gulf Coast. First is the forming of two new environmental institutes at Rice University in Houston (the WaTER Institute and the Rice Sustainability Institute), and second is a dive into work on coral reefs in the Gulf. Together these show some of the important work being done to protect local environments throughout the region. 

Today with sit down with ecologists and authors Suzanne Simpson and John Williams who wrote the field guide to Houston's wildlife, Wild Houston: Explore the Amazing Nature in and around the Bayou City. Together we talk through some of the nature beauty of the city, the wide range of species found around town, and some of the best places to reconnect to nature. 

Oysters are something of a miracle food – they clean the water, help reduce storm damage, and offer habitat for other species. But in the last decades, oyster populations have plummeted. Today I sit down with our two new researchers, Alex Little and Caroline Pollan, to talk with Seth Blitch (Director of Conservation at The Nature Conservancy, Louisiana) all about oysters. 

On today's show our researchers Jadyn Bray-Boyce and Sienna Yiin talk about the ways we design our transportation systems, the environmental impacts these choices make, and how improving transit builds a better world for everyone. Jadyn and Sienna sit down with Veronica Davis (former Director of Transportation and Drainage Operations for Houston Public Works; author of Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities) and Christof Spieler (Senior Lecturer of Architecture at Rice University) to better understand how we build our transportation systems and what the future might hold for better transit.

Plastics are ubiquitous. From our toothbrushes to surgical equipment, plastics have reshaped life on Earth in ways both good and bad. Today we talk with Dr. Heather Davis, Assistant Professor of Cultre and Media at the New School, about her book Plastic Matter and the history – and future – of plastic. 

We spend a lot of time talking about transistions: clean energy transitions, carbon-free futures, green economies. But less often do we take time to sit down and visualize the future world we want, rather than the solution to the problem (climate change, environmental injustice) that we are confronting. Today, we're joined by Dr. Joseph Campana (Director of Rice University's Center for Environmental Justice) in a conversation with two artists, Marina Zurkow and Sarah Rothberg, to discuss a system they've created called More and More Futures. More and More Futures enables players to imagine the future they want, all through playing a game. 

Jackie Medcalf, founder and Executive Director of Texas Health and Environment Alliance, joins us to discuss superfund sites in Houston, ongoing pollution challenges, and the risks of these sites to human health. 

Today we're talking to Environmental Journalist and Pulitzer Prize Finalist Abrahm Lustgarten about his new book, On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America. Lustgarten argues that the coming decades will redefine where human beings can live on the Earth, and that this change will fundamentally reshape both population centers around the globe and the US. We'll dig into what this means for areas at risk, like Houston, but also how we might prepare for new waves of international and intra-national migration.

Young people are leading the way on environmental action and building resilience. On today's episode, we sit down with American Youthworks: an organization working across Texas and Louisiana to build a climate corps of young people, giving them valuable job training and skills for a life in conservation and environmental repair work. We speak with four of their corps members and learn about how these young folks are beating climate anxiety by getting to work building a better planet.