Green Sense Radio

Lucia Priselac is the Founding Director of The Uproot Project a nonprofit organization launched in March 2021 to advance the careers of journalists of color who have been historically underrepresented when it comes to reporting on environment and science-related issues. Lucia is a proponent of individuals doing little acts to make their daily lives more sustainable and she provides concrete examples of how to bring about sustainable change in underserved communities.

Friends of the Chicago River is an award-winning non-profit founded in 1979 with over 35,000
members, volunteers, and online advocates, that have been working to improve the health of
the Chicago River system for the benefit of people, plants, and animals.
This week we spoke with Margaret Frisbie, Executive Director, Friends of the Chicago River to
learn how this non-profit is turning a river once so polluted with waste from the city’s
meatpacking industry to a river that can be both ecologically healthy and a place for people to live, work, shop, and play.

All the way from Berlin we are joined by Dr. Anna Zakrisson who is on a mission to empower individuals by promoting science literacy and critical thinking to make people more resistant to populist ideologies and alternative facts (AKA fake news!) She is the founder of the science communication platform Doctor Anna's Imaginarium and currently works as a Scientific Researcher with Green Roof Diagnostics. Hear how she combines art, science, and green roofs to help improve the sustainability of a community.

Mike Keen is the Principal at Thrive Michiana, a sustainability and innovation consulting and development company.  He has dedicated his career to the principles of sustainability and is a longtime friend. Listen to his story on how he transitioned from a professor to a builder of accessible housing and his efforts to transform the housing system that has priced many out of owning a home.

To make society sustainable, it must work for all its citizens. Mike Carney is the president and founder of KCARC. He has been creating a livelihood and tax-paying productive citizens for people who otherwise would have been left behind. Hear his story about how he began KCARC in 1972 with the mission to bring accessible, compassionate, and innovative services to people with disabilities, in Knox County, IN.

Angie Fyfe, Executive Director of ICLEI, (Local Governments for Sustainability) is one of the largest global networks of local governments devoted to solving the world’s most intractable sustainability challenges. Angie was featured as one of three women leading in sustainability and climate action. Hear about how she and her organization are tackling climate challenges with local solutions.

For centuries—even prior to the Civil War—Black-owned farms have played a key role in how Black Americans have forged their own identities, independence, wealth, and well-being amidst systems designed to repress them. John Jamerson, and his son D'Anthony Jamerson, are with the Indiana-based Legacy Taste of the Garden" farm. They talk about the challenges and opportunities facing black farmers in the past, present, and future!

What happens if all the doomsdays forecast for the future are wrong and we have a utopian future with a clean environment? Michael Rogers, Practical Futurist has been tracking innovations that will change the future for decades and has written a new novel Email from the Future, notes from 2084.  Michael’s utopian future contains vertical farms in cities, as a sustainable way to grow year-round crops with a small footprint and high yields.

This week on Green Sense Radio we are joined by Mike Jackson a Springfield Illinois-based architect and a visiting professor of architecture at the University of Illinois. Mike has led the architectural division of the Illinois historic preservation agency for more than 30 years and shares his insights into why historic preservation is important, the criteria used to differentiate between blight and buildings worth saving, and provides tips the public can use when it comes to preservation.

This week, Tom Appel reports our Green Automotive News - Ford Motor company’s announcement to split the company into Ford Blue, for traditional gas- and diesel-powered vehicles, and Ford Model E, for new electric models; Rising gas prices and their impact on car sales; The rise and fall of Rivian the darling of Wall Street rising production costs, delays in production and a PR debacle have soured its loyal customer base; and why battery production is moving to the US.