Around Town 5/25/23: Sustainable Communities Day

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Today we’re talking with Gregory Biddinger, one of the organizers of a Sustainable Communities Day coming up in on 6/1/23 from 1-4:30pm at the Belfast Boathouse.  FMI: Contact Gregory Biddinger at (713) 203-0066 or email [email protected]

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 5/25/23: AI Snake Oil

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

AI is part of our world now/ As with many new technologies, it is wise to pay attention to claims of new wonders since some may turn out to be little more than “snake oil”, even when they come form usually reliable sources. Here are a few examples.

About the host:
Jim Campbell has a longstanding interest in the intersection of digital technology, law, and public policy and how they affect our daily lives in our increasingly digital world. He has banged around non-commercial radio for decades and, in the little known facts department (that should probably stay that way), he was one of the readers voicing Richard Nixon’s words when NPR broadcast the entire transcript of the Watergate tapes. Like several other current WERU volunteers, he was at the station’s sign-on party on May 1, 1988 and has been a volunteer ever since doing an early stint as a Morning Maine host, and later producing WERU program series including Northern Lights, Conversations on Science and Society, Sound Portrait of the Artist, Selections from the Camden Conference, others that will probably come to him after this is is posted, and, of course, Notes from the Electronic Cottage.

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Power for the People 5/24/23: Advice and Information for Heat Pumps

Producer/Host: Steve Kahl

Power for the People: Energy education and solutions for Mainers and Maine communities

This month:
– How heat pumps work
– Cooling AND heating
– Hints for location decisions
– Maintenance recommendations

Guest/s:
Matt Scott, co-owner, Dave’s World (Ellsworth and 4 other locations in Maine)

About the host:

Steve Kahl is Professor of Science at Thomas College where he teaches environmental and energy courses and advises the student sustainability club. He writes the monthly ‘Sustainability Minute’ email which is distributed to over 1,200 readers. He is a member of the Quarry Road Recreational Area board of directors where he is advocating for a net-zero energy new welcome center. He has advised the board of WERU on the current plan for the station to become 100% solar powered in 2020. Steve is a member of the Green Campus Coalition of Maine, the working group of sustainability directors at Maine college campuses.

Steve’s past positions include Sustainability Director at Unity College where he developed a plan for the college to become 100% solar powered and earned the college the prestigious STARS Gold ranking with the American Association of Sustainability in Higher Education. Before that, he was Director of Environmental and Energy Strategies for the James Sewall Company of Old Town where he led a Maine Technology Institute research project that found that Maine could be 79% solar powered if all suitably-oriented rooftops had solar PV panels.

Prior to moving home to Maine, he was a member of the Energy Commission in Plymouth NH where he was obtained funding for the renovation of a town office building to net-zero energy and the installation of 160 KW of solar PV panels on town properties included a major PV array at the sewage treatment plant that offsets 40% of its electrical costs.

In his own home, he has installed two air-source heat pumps to completely eliminate heating oil, a hybrid hot water heater to reduce his water heating costs by 70%, and insulated the basement and attic to further reduce energy consumption and increase comfort. He would like to install rooftop solar panels but so far his shade trees that also produce maple syrup each year have convinced him otherwise. However, he has solar panels on his summer place at the lake and hasn’t paid for any electricity there since 2011.

Steve has a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of Maine.

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Wabanaki Windows 5/23/23: ICE 3 MacDonald Transcript

Producer/Host: Donna Loring
Other credits: Technical assistance for the show was provided by Joel Mann WERU Orland Maine.
Music for the show was from the CD Dream Walk by Rolfe Richter

Wabanaki Windows is a monthly show featuring topics of interest from a Wabanaki perspective.

This month: This episode reveals the first of three uncovered Indian transcripts. They are from the 1942 Maine Legislative Research Committee. The committee was searching for a way to save money for the State since we were in a World War. They discuss ways to do this in these committee meetings. Much like the Nixon tapes these transcripts are a smoking gun that reveal in the Legislators own words a long-range plan to eliminate the Maine Tribes. MacDonald was the Director of Health and Welfare this was the department the Maine Tribes were placed into for oversight from their previous placement under the Maine Fish and Wildlife Department.

Guest/s:
Eric Mehnert, Chief Judge of the Penobscot Nation Tribal Court.
Attorney Joseph Gousse, Legal researcher and writing specialist has worked with the Maine Wabanaki Truth and reconciliation Commission is a Professor of Business Law in the Maine Community College System.
Professors Harald Prins is a Native of the Netherlands. He is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and an Emertus at Kansas State University.
Darren Ranco, Member of the Penobscot Nation. He is Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Native American Studies at the University of Maine.

About the host:
Donna M Loring is a Penobscot Indian Nation Tribal Elder, and former Council Member. She represented the Penobscot Nation in the State Legislature for over a decade. She is a former Senior Advisor on Tribal Affairs to Governor Mills. She is the author of “In The Shadow of The Eagle A Tribal Representative In Maine”. Donna has an Annual lecture series in her name at the University of New England that addresses Social Justice and Human Rights issues. In 2017 She received an Honorary Doctoral Degree in Humane Letters from the University of Maine Orono and was given the Alumni Service Award. It is the most prestigious recognition given by the University of Maine Alumni Association. It is presented Annually to a University of Maine graduate whose life’s work is marked by outstanding achievements in professional, business, civic and/or Public service areas. Donna received a second Honorary Doctorate from Thomas College in May of 2022

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Outside the Box 5/23/23: “Sage Sayings”

Producer/Host: Larry Dansinger

About the host:
Larry Dansinger (no pronouns) of Bangor came to Maine in 1974 and has been here ever since. Some of Larry’s activities since then: Done community organizing on numerous issues through INVERT and then Resources for Organizing and Social Change (ROSC), committed civil disobedience several times, grown a garden yearly since 1977, joined various food cooperatives and two men’s groups, refused to pay federal income taxes for war, lived on a community land trust for 23 years, and met a wonderful partner whom Larry has loved for over 40 years. Larry has produced Outside the Box features on WERU since 2007 and continues to look for unique ways of seeing almost any problem or situation.

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A Word in Edgewise 5/22/23: Of the Innamorati & the Hope of the Future . . .

Producer/Host: R.W. Estela

Hi, I’m RW Estela: Since 1991, I’ve been presenting A Word in Edgewise, WERU’s longest-running short feature, a veritable almanac of worldly and heavenly happenings, a confluence of 21st-century life in its myriad manifestations, international and domestic, cosmopolitan and rural, often revealing, as the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same — though not always! Sometimes in addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives, in this age of vagary and ambiguity, when chronological time is punctuated elliptically, things can quickly turn edgy and controversial, as we search for understanding amid our dialectic. Tune in Monday mornings at 7:30 a.m. for an exciting journey through space and time with a few notable birthdays thrown in for good measure during A Word in Edgewise . . .

About the host:
RW Estela was raised as a first-generation American in Colorado by a German mother and a Corsican-Basque father who would become a three-war veteran for the US Army, so RW was naturally a military brat and later engaged in various Vietnam-era civil-service adventures before paying his way through college by skiing for the University of Colorado, playing Boulder coffeehouses, and teaching. He has climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; found work as an FAA-certificated commercial pilot, a California-licensed building contractor, a publishing editor, a practitioner of Aikido, and a college professor of English; among his many interdisciplinary pursuits are the design and building of Terrell Residence Library (recently renamed the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center at the University of Maine), writing Building It In Two Languages (a bilingual dictionary of construction terminology), aerial photo documentation of two dam removals (Great Works and Veazie) on the Penobscot River, and once a week since 1991 drafting an installment of A Word In Edgewise, his essay series addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives — and WERU’s oldest continuous short feature. When pandemics do not interfere, he does the Triple Crown of Maine open-water ocean swims (Peaks to Portland, Islesboro Crossing, and Nubble Light Challenge) and the Whitewater Downriver Point Series of the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization. RW is the father of two and the grandfather of three and lives with his partner Kathleen of 37 years and their two Maine Coons in Orono.

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The Essential Rhythm 5/21/23: Does rockweed harvest damage intertidal ecosystems?

Producer/Host: Sarah O’Malley

This episode summarizes the findings of Johnston et al (2023) showing that commercial rockweed harvest as practiced in Maine results in on average reduced height but pre harvest levels of biomass one year post harvest. Different implications based on management perspectives are noted. 

Johnston, Elliot et al 2023 Bed-scale impact and recovery of a commercially important intertidal seaweed, Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 561:151869

About the host:
Sarah O’Malley is an ecologist, naturalist and science communicator passionate about deepening her listeners’ experiences with the natural world. She teaches biology and sustainability at Maine Maritime Academy and is currently collaborating on a guide book to the intertidal zone in the Gulf of Maine.

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