Donate to WERU Today!Producer/Host: R.W. Estela
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The Essential Rhythm 1/1/23: Seasons at the Shore
Producer/Host: Sarah O’Malley
This episode discusses physical factors that influence food availability and thus seasonal rhythms at the sea shore. Soft shell clams (Mya arenaria) are used to illustrate the seasonal connections between temperature, food and reproduction
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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The Nature of Phenology 12/31/22: Snow buntings
Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark
Snow buntings spend the summer in their high arctic tundra breeding grounds. Come November and December, they find their way south to most of the mid-tier of the United States where they pass our relatively mild winters on grassy or weedy fields adjacent to inland lakes and salt water.
Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com
About the host/writers:
Joe Horn lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder of Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide and Carpenter. He is passionate about fishing, cooking, and making things with his hands. He has both an MBA in Sustainability and an MS focused in Environmental Education. Joe can be reached by emailing [email protected]
Hazel Stark lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder and Naturalist Educator at Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide. She loves taking a closer look at nature through the lens of her camera, napping in beds of moss, and taking hikes to high points to see what being tall is all about. She has an MS in Resource Management and Conservation and is a lifelong Maine outdoorswoman. Hazel can be reached by emailing [email protected]
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The Cosmic Curator 12/31/22 “Think About Your Thinking”
Good Morning People!
And a very happy New Year’s Eve to all.
This is your Cosmic Curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for today, the last day of 2022 and the week ahead, the first week, of 2023.
We begin the day with the moon in Aries. An Aries moon typically has boundless energy. It takes 36 hours for the moon to move through a sign and this moon’s transit through Aries will have some high and low moods for sure…
About the Host:
Tom Yaroschuk is a Vedic Astrologer. His intention is to help people understand their karma and the issues they may confront to cultivate more fulfilling lives. Tom is writing a memoir of the spiritual lessons derived from his work in a Homeless Day Center in between a career as an award winning television and documentary producer.
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Earthwise 12/31/22: The New Year’s Resolution
Producer/Host: Anu Dudley
About the host:
Rev. Dr. Anu Dudley is an ordained Pagan minister and a retired history professor. She continues to teach classes, including the three-year ordination curriculum at the Temple of the Feminine Divine, and others such as History of the Goddess, Paganism 101, Ethical Magic, and Introduction to the Runes. Currently she is writing a book about how to cast the runes using their original Goddess meanings. She lives in the woods off-grid in a small homesteading community in Central Maine.
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Around Town 12/29/22: New Year’s Eve Opera Downeast!
Producer/Host: Amy Browne
This week:
The Winter Harbor Music Festival has a unique offering this New Year’s eve. Executive Director Deiran Manning is here to let you know how you can be part of an interactive opera experience.
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 12/29/22: AI Books 2
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Artificial Intelligence – AI – is already a big part of our world and will be even more prevalent in our everyday lives as we move forward. Today, let’s look at some books that might help us get our heads around what AI is and is not – at least not yet – and how AI will quite probably affect all of our lives in our Information Age world.
Here are the books mentioned on today’s program:
Wiener, Norbert, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society
Shannon, Claude E. and Weaver, Warren, The Mathematical Theory of Communication
Brockman, John, ed., Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI
Kissinger, Henry A., Schmidt, Eric, and Huttenlocher, Daniel, The Age of AI and Our Human Future
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 12/28/22: Maine Audubon on Appropriate Siting of Renewable Energy Projects
Producer/Host: Steve Kahl
Power for the People: Energy education and solutions for Mainers and Maine communities
This month:
The perspective of Maine Audubon for appropriate siting of renewable energy for protection of habitats and biodiversity
-Off-shore wind
–On-shore wind
-Industrial-scale solar power arrays
Guest/s:
Eliza Donoghue, Director of Advocacy, Maine Audubon
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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