Infinite Earth Radio – weekly conversations with leaders building smarter, more sustainable, and equitable communities

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Latest Episodes:

The Patuxent River Keeper Aug 02, 2018

Show notes

Topic:

Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Environmental Justice and Equitable Development Series – serving diverse communities and the watershed movement

Guest & Organization:

Fred Tutman is a grassroots community advocate for clean water in Maryland’s longest and deepest intrastate waterway and holds the title of Patuxent Riverkeeper and organization that he founded in 2004. He also lives and works on an active farm located near the Patuxent that has been his family’s ancestral home for nearly a century. Prior to Riverkeeping, Fred spent over 25 years working as a media producer and consultant on telecommunications assignments all over the globe. Fred now teaches an adjunct course in Environmental Law and Policy at Historic St. Mary’s College of MD. An accomplished Blacksmith, farmer and outdoor adventurer, Fred is the recipient of numerous regional and state awards for his various environmental works. He is among the longest serving Waterkeepers in the Chesapeake region and the only African-American Waterkeeper in the nation.

Resources:

Patuxent Riverkeeper

Skeo Solutions

Replay – Regenerative Agriculture with John Roulac of Nutiva: Voting for a Sustainable Future Three Times Per Day Jul 26, 2018

Show notes

Topic:

What you eat can help save the planet.

Guest & Organization:

John W. Roulac is the founder and CEO of Nutiva, the world’s leading organic superfoods brand of hemp, coconut, chia, and red palm superfoods. John founded Nutiva in 1999 with a mission to nourish people and planet. Through his leadership, Nutiva has become the fastest-growing superfoods company on the planet, with a 55 percent annual growth rate since 2002, and has for five years in a row been named one of Inc. magazine’s fastest-growing companies in America. This growth keeps bringing John closer to his dream of a world that places people above profits—one where people everywhere have access to wholesome, organic foods.

Nutiva® is the world’s leading brand of all-organic hemp foods, coconut oil, red palm oil and chia seeds. We’re a values-driven brand, dedicated to “Nourishing people and planet.” In a world where the industrialized food system has led us down a tangled path, where food choices have been reduced to the lesser-of-evils, and where distrust reigns, we are the champions of the greater good. Tireless seekers of pure and delicious foods that will nourish our bodies and our planet, we have devoted ourselves to a dream, a vision, a mission. We will revolutionize the way the world eats! And in so doing we will bring nourishment and balance, health and well being, sustainability and community to people and planet.

We know change is hard, but we want to make it easy. We went out looking for the kind of foods that packed a powerful amount of nutrition into every bite, so that you could make small changes to big effect. We found superfoods—nutrient-dense powerhouses that can also be grown and processed in a sustainable way. These are foods that are truly good for you and for the planet. They’re foods like hemp and coconut, chia and red palm. They’re organic, full of vital nutrition, easy to use and delicious additions to your diet.

We say food doesn’t have to be a choice between the lesser of evils.

We say let food lead us to a better world.

We say super people deserve superfoods.

We say, come join us in our mission.

Together, we can change the world.

Resources:

Learn More about John here

Learn More about John’s work

Find John on Facebook

Learn More about Nutiva

Nutiva’s Real Food Manifesto

UrbanFootprint Jul 19, 2018

Show notes

Topic:

Smart Growth and Livable Communities Series – data-driven tools to assist in decision making

Guest & Organization:

Joe DiStefano is Principal and Co-Founder of UrbanFootprint (formerly Calthorpe Analytics). He leverages more than 20 years of experience in land use and transportation planning in leading the development and deployment of the UrbanFootprint software platform. His career has focused on the implementation of actionable, data-driven tools that bring critical information to land use planning decisions, energy and water resource choices, and the environmental, public health, and social equity challenges of our times.

Joe has led some of the most complex planning and design projects in the US and globally, including the award-winning Envision Utah regional plan, post-hurricane recovery in Southern Louisiana, and major scenario modeling and design efforts in Los Angeles, Mexico City, and the Middle East. He now leads UrbanFootprint, a web-based software platform designed to optimize each step of the sustainable urban planning and design process by supporting planners and communities with easy access to data science and advanced scenario planning.

Joe holds a Master’s in Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of California at Berkeley. He lives in Berkeley, California with his wife and two children and is an avid cyclist.

Resources:

UrbanFootprint – Urban Planning Software for Sustainable Cities

Local Government Commission

Public Transit and Local Leadership Jul 13, 2018

Show notes

Topic:

Urban Resilience Series – public transit that reflects your values

Guest & Organization:

Jarrett Walker is an international consultant in public transit network design and policy, with 25 years of experience planning public transit in North America, Europe, Russia, Australia, and New Zealand. His firm Jarrett Walker and Associates, based in Portland, Oregon, provides transit planning and executive advice to clients worldwide.

He has worked in about 100 cities, including successful network redesign projects in Houston, Anchorage, Canberra, and Auckland. His firm is currently undertaking network design studies in Philadelphia and Dublin, among many others.

He is a frequent keynote speaker, both at conferences and at events building a city’s interest and understanding of the public transit challenge.

He is a well-known innovator in describing transit issues to the public, in building values-based policies and standards, and in running interactive design processes for transit plans. His training programs range from executive workshops to two-day intensive courses.

His book, Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives, was published by Island Press in 2011. The book offers an introduction to transit issues for the average reader, designed to help anyone form clearer views that reflect their own values. In addition to his consulting, teaching, and speaking, he writes about public transit issues at HumanTransit.org.

Practically interested in an impractical number of fields, he is probably the only person with peer-reviewed articles in both the Journal of Transport Geography and Shakespeare Quarterly.

Resources:

Jarrett Walker and Associates

HumanTransit.org

Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives

Island Press Urban Resilience Project

Download the Island Press APP! Learn more about the APP here, and find it on Google Play and Apple App Store!

Replay – Street Soccer USA: Transforming Lives and Neighborhoods Jul 13, 2018

Show notes

Topic:

The role of sports in increasing social mobility and improving communities

Guest & Organization:

Lisa Wrightsman is the Regional Program Manager of Street Soccer USA Sacramento and the Founder and Coach of Sacramento Lady Salamanders. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication with a concentration in Digital Video from California State University, Sacramento. She was a member of the University’s NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer team and currently holds multiple program records as well as recognition as a member of the All-Decade team. After college she played over five years of semi professional soccer for the Elk Grove Pride.

Today her passion for soccer is seen in her social entrepreneurship initiatives with Street Soccer USA; a nationwide non-profit that uses soccer to break the cycle of homelessness and domestic abuse. Lisa is the founder and current Director and Coach of Street Soccer USA’s Sacramento Lady Salamanders. She started this program in 2010 and has since seen tremendous results and growth of the program as it has proven to successfully reverse the effects of addiction and domestic violence in 92% of team participants. Street Soccer USA uses this team platform to create a training curriculum of job preparation, life skills, and other specialized services, ultimately connecting participants directly to jobs, education, and housing.

Lisa was recognized in 2015, as one of Sacramento Business Journal’s top 40 Under 40 young professionals. She is a Senior Fellow of the Nehemiah Emerging Leader’s Program. Since 2010 Lisa has coached the USA Women’s Street Soccer team at the Homeless World Cup and in 2016 was selected as Women’s Coach of the Tournament. Most recently Lisa was selected as a 2016 Change-Maker by TEDx Sacramento where she shared her story of resilience, hope, and how to be a catalyst for change.

Resources:

Interested in supporting Street Soccer USA? Click here to donate!

Street Soccer USA

Local Government Commission

**Thriving Earth Exchange** Jul 13, 2018
Show notes

Topic:
Adaptation and Livable Communities Series – using science to advance community priorities
Guest & Organization:
Raj Pandya directs American Geophysical Union (AGU)’s Thriving Earth Exchange (TEX). TEX helps volunteer scientists and community leaders work together to use science, especially Earth and space science, to advance community priorities related to sustainability, resilience, disaster risk reduction, and environmental justice.
Raj’s work invites everyone to be part of guiding and doing science, especially people from historically marginalized communities, so that science can contribute to a world where all people and all creatures can thrive, now and in the future.
Raj chairs the National Academies committee on “Designing Citizen Science to Support Science Learning” and serves on the boards for Public Lab and the Anthropocene Alliance. He was a founding member of the board of the Citizen Science Association and has helped lead education and diversity related activities for the American Meteorological Society. As part of TEX, Raj helped launch the Resilience Dialogues – a public-private partnership that uses facilitated online dialogues to advance community resilience.
Formerly, Raj led Spark Science Education and SOARS, both part of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). While at UCAR, he led a team that worked with Navrongo Health Research to Centre using weather data to better manage meningitis in Africa. He also cohosted, with indigenous leaders, UCAR’s first conference on indigenous knowledge and climate science “Planning for Seven Generations”. Prior to joining UCAR, Raj served as a faculty member at West Chester University in Pennsylvania.
Raj got his PhD from University of Washington exploring how large thunderstorms grow and sustain themselves.
Resources:
American Geophysical Union’s Thriving Earth Exchange
Resilience Dialogues
California Adaptation Forum – Register for California’s Premier Adaptation Gathering taking place in Sacramento, CA on August 27-29, 2018!
Global Climate Action Summit 2018 – San Francisco, CA on September 12-14, 2018
Local Government Commission

Prosperity and Poverty in Urban America Jul 13, 2018

Show notes

Topic:

Urban Resilience Series – growth in American cities

Guest & Organization:

Alan Mallach is a senior fellow at the Center for Community Progress in Washington, DC. He is the author of many works on housing and planning, including Bringing Buildings Back and Building a Better Urban Future: New Directions for Housing Policies in Weak Market Cities. He has served as director of housing and economic development for Trenton, N.J. as a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Resources:

Urban Revitalization for All — A webinar conversation with Alan Mallach and former D.C. mayor Anthony Williams: Join Island Press on Friday, June 29th from 1:15-2:30 pm ET for this free webinar! RSVP for your spot by visiting bit.ly/dividedcity

The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America

Island Press Urban Resilience Project

Download the Island Press APP! Learn more about the APP here, and find it on Google Play and Apple App Store!

Transportation Inequity in Baltimore Jul 13, 2018

Show notes

Topic:

Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Environmental Justice and Equitable Development Series – transportation inequity

Guest & Organization:

Tracee Strum-Gilliam, AICP is the Director of Mid-Atlantic Client Solutions for PRR. For her, working at PRR is thrilling! The core part of her position at PRR is to grow the Baltimore office and PRR’s transportation and infrastructure practice on the East Coast. As a 20-year veteran of the transportation industry, it is most certainly a challenge that she welcomes, because she loves helping clients solve challenges and achieve their goals through strategic planning. She is a proud member of several Transportation Research Board committees, Women’s Transportation Seminar Baltimore Chapter, and the Waterfront Partnership Board of Baltimore. When she’s not working, she’s traveling with family. She always has a passport handy and a suitcase ready.

PRR specializes in advancing major public issues and sparking market transformation across a diverse range of segments that include environment, transportation, healthcare, and land use.

Resources:

PRR

Local Government Commission

New Partners for Smart Growth conference

Resiliency Planning Success Stories Jul 13, 2018

Show notes

Topic:

Adaptation and Livable Communities Series – getting adaptation and resilience projects to move forward

Guest & Organization:

Ellory Monks is co-founder of The Atlas Marketplace, a free online community for public officials upgrading their systems to be stronger, smarter and more sustainable. The Atlas is a hassle-free space where cities come to learn, share, and connect about what’s working in their communities. As co-founder, Ellory works with 70+ partner cities to help them scale and replicate proven urban innovations – and the benefits they generate – in their own communities. Prior to co-founding The Atlas, Ellory was Partner at re:focus partners, a firm dedicated to the design & financing of resilient infrastructure, and before that, held a fellowship in Washington D.C., where she acted as the executive secretary of the Obama Administration’s Climate Data and Tools Initiative, and more broadly, provided analytical and technical support to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). She has a B.A. in Civil & Environmental Engineering and Public Policy from Rice University.

Resources:

Atlas Marketplace – access is free!

Miami-Dade $13B CIP plan that prioritizes resilience

Upcoming workshop at Kresge Foundation: “Procuring Resilience” Workshop

Retain Your Rain, Norfolk VA

Citizen Science for King Tide Flooding, Broward County

California Adaptation Forum – the 3rd California Adaptation Forum will be held in Sacramento, CA from August 27-29, 2018

Local Government Commission

Infinite Earth Radio Episode 45: Radical Innovation and Resilient Infrastructure—Climate Adaptation

Infinite Earth Radio Episode 117: Coastal Adaptation in Louisiana