Check out our shows on EcoJustice Radio (from the studios of KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles) and other podcasts.
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Women in Politics and the Environment
Over the past few years, there has been significant growth in US politics of women candidates (especially women of color) and for many this being their first run for office. As of today, there exists a record number of women in congress and more young women and women of color than ever in US History.
On this show, Jessica Aldridge talks with Aura Vasquez, Environmental and Social Justice organizer and Candidate for Los Angeles City Council District 10, on how we change the “old boys club” and what this could mean for bringing social equity to the table.
Sweatshops: LA’s Dirty Secret and the Fight for Garment Workers
Los Angeles is the nation’s garment production capital and the city’s second largest manufacturing sector, yet workers face injustice, usually associated with the developing world, right here in one of the largest cities in the United States. Jessica Aldridge, interviews Mar Martinez, Organizing Coordinator and Wage Theft Clinic Coordinator from the Garment Worker Center, a worker rights organization leading an anti-sweatshop movement to secure social and economic justice for tens of thousands of Los Angeles garment workers.
The Steep Environmental and Social Costs of the Fashion Industry
When we get dressed in the morning, most of us don’t consider the environmental costs and human rights issues that may be attached to the clothing on our bodies. Jessica Aldridge interviews Andrea Plell, co-founder of The Sustainable Fashion Alliance and West Coast Regional Coordinator for Fashion Revolution, and Jennifer Gilbert, Chief Marketing Officer of I:CO (short for I:Collect). These two women have made it their business to not only consider how to clean up the global fashion industry, advocating for environmentally-supportive and equitable solutions to water pollution, pesticides, microfibers, and waste associated with making, washing, and disposing of our clothing.
Mobilizing a Climate Revolution: From the Personal to a Green New Deal
Massive climate disruption continues to strike all over the world, one disaster after another, droughts, wildfires, typhoons, mega-floods, with glaciers melting and methane escaping from deep under the permafrost. The UN IPCC said we have 12 more years to stabilize greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere to avoid runaway climate change. We need solutions to this problem to spark a climate revolution. Jessica Aldridge speaks with Peter Kalmus, NASA climate scientist and author of Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution and Sam Berndt also a scientist and a coordinator of the Sunrise Movement Los Angeles.
Nuclear Waste at Santa Susana: The Los Angeles Meltdown & Cover-Up
The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL or Rocketdyne), north of Los Angeles, burned in the November 2018 Woolsey Fire, threatening toxic exposures from contaminated dust, smoke, ash, and soil. In the 1940s, SSFL with its 10 experimental nuclear reactors was developed for research and weapons testing. In 1959, it suffered an uncontained partial meltdown of at least one sodium reactor referred to by experts as the worst nuclear disaster in U.S history, and the fourth largest release of iodine-131 in the history of nuclear power. Until 1979 the incident and the toxic waste byproduct that still pollutes the ground water, air, and soil was kept secret.
Jessica Aldridge discusses the issues with Denise Duffield, Associate Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, and Melissa Bumstead, Mother and local advocate, and a founder of Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab.
Expanding Suburbs at Expense of Health, Environment, & Resources
On this episode we interview Dr. Nick Jensen, of California Native Plant Society and Urban Planner Jack Eidt of SoCal 350 Climate Action on the proposal to build more than 19,000 homes at Centennial in the middle of a mountain-grassland wilderness on the far edge of Los Angeles County. (Read the blog here.)
The State of Recycling – How California Legislation is Driving New Waste Standards
On this episode we interview Nick Lapis from Californians Against Waste on recently passed legislation designed to protect environment and human health, while moving the state toward zero waste. (Read the blog here.)