The Cosmic Curator 10/1/22: Change is coming….

This is your cosmic curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with an astrology update for today, Saturday, October 1st.

Planets move in three directions in the sky. They go forward … backwards.. and stand still. Forward is called direct. Backward is called retrograde. When a planet is retrograde its closest to the earth in its celestial orbit around the sun.

If you’ve been looking up in the sky look after dusk and before dawn, that big bright planet overhead is Jupiter…

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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Around Town 9/29/22: Developing Sears Island for a “Green” Project? Meeting Taking Place Today.

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week: We are back in Searsport, talking with Rolf Olsen, VP of the Board for Friends of Sears Island, and member of Maine’s Offshore Wind Port Advisory Group, which will advise the Governor and others as they consider location options for a new offshore wind construction and deployment facility. Friends of Sears Island, Islesboro Islands Trust and Sierra Club, Maine support offshore wind, but prefer that the facility be built on nearby Mack Point, which is already industrialized.

The Offshore Wind Port Advisory Committee is meeting today, September 29th, 2022, 9am – 4:30pm at MaineDOT Headquarters. The public is welcome and may attend by zoom. More information, the agenda, and registration for the zoom link can be found here

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 9/29/22: AI Online Processing 1

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not just for big corporations any more. AI is emerging as a way for regular folks to more quickly and simply get their work done, create new things, and change how they look or sound online. Let’s take a look at some of those emerging, and sometimes quite remarkable possibilities, and even try out a couple of very impressive ones.

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 9/28/22: The Impact of Climate Change on Businesses & What They Are Doing About It

Producer/Host: Steve Kahl

Renewable Radio: Energy education and solutions for Mainers

This month:

Interview with the ED and President of ClimateWork Maine, a consortium of businesses dedicated to helping Maine businesses respond to, mitigate, and evolve their businesses to the economic impact of climate change.
1. Understanding climate change and its evolving economic impact
2. How businesses can respond to the economic impact of climate change
3. The need for carbon-free energy adoption and climate-friendly business strategies

Guest/s:

Jeff Marks, Executive Director, ClimateWork Maine
Alan Caron, President and Founder, ClimateWork 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 9/27/22: Maine Indian Land Claims

Producer/Host: Donna Loring
Other credits: Technical assistance for the show was provided by Joel Mann WERU Orland Maine and Jessica Lockhart of WMPG Portland Portland 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:
In this episode Professor Harald Prins, Attorney’s Corey Hinton, Sherri Mitchell, and Nicole Friederichs focus in detail on the Maine Indian Land Claims the legal terms used in the act and the effect of the Act on present day Penobscot, Passamaquoddy and Maliseet Communities. What we should do with the Act in the future.
-Sovereignty/what it means for Penobscot in the language.
-Federal Indian Law and how it is applied if at all.
-What should happen with the Land Claims for future consideration.

Guest/s:
Professor Harald Prins is a distinguished professor of Anthropology and an Emeritis at Kansas State University. He an expert in Wabanaki History.
Sherri Mitchell Esq. is a member of the Penobscot Nation. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maine, magna cum laude and received her Juris Doctorate and a certificate in Indigenous People’s Law and Policy from the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law.
Corey Hinton Esq. is a citizen of the Passamaquoddy Tribe from Pleasant Point. He is also an attorney at the law firm of Drummond Woodsum, where he leads the firm’s Tribal Nations practice group.
Nicole Friederichs Esq is a Practitioner-in-Residence at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, MA where she teaches Federal Indian Law and directs the Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples Clinic.

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 9/27/22: “Deservedness”

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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The Essential Rhythm 9/25/22: Tiny Creatures in the Sand

Producer/Host: Sarah O’Malley

This episode describes some of the animals that make up the meiofauna on a sandy beach, tiny animals that live between grains of sand. Groups include nematodes (round worms), copepods (tiny crustaceans) and tardigrades (water bears).

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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