Senior producer Jonathan Miller tells a hometown story for a national audience in a half-hour piece on Ithaca, New York’s ambitious Green New Deal and what it might mean for hometowns everywhere.
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Jonathan Miller
Special Projects
The Town that Would Transform the World
Jonathan Miller
Special Projects
The Town that Would Transform the World
Homelands senior producer Jonathan Miller reports from Ithaca, New York, whose ambitious Green New Deal seeks to deliver drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and major benefits for the community’s most vulnerable members. It’s a hometown story with implications for hometowns everywhere.
Ithaca sustainability director Luis Aguirre-Torres (second from left) meets with college students, scientists, and artists at the Soil Factory maker space in Ithaca, NY.
In “The Little Town that Would Transform the World,” Homelands senior producer Jonathan Miller reports from Ithaca, New York, whose ambitious Green New Deal seeks to deliver drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and major benefits for the community’s most vulnerable members. It’s a hometown story with implications for hometowns everywhere.
The half-hour piece is the latest episode of Living Downstream, a podcast about environmental justice produced by Steve Mencher of Mensch Media and distributed by Northern California Public Media.
Miller introduces us to Ithaca’s sustainability director, Luis Aguirre-Torres, a Mexican engineer (his Ph.D. research was on entropy) with a global vision and an activist’s passion for disruption. Aguirre-Torres is both an insider and an outsider, a veteran of international climate policymaking but new to Ithaca. Since he arrived this spring, he has sought to broaden the climate conversation to include social change agents and people whose lives are likely to be most affected by climate change — and by climate policies.
We also meet Richard Rivera, an outreach worker at Ithaca’s sprawling homeless encampment, who deserves a podcast of his own, and civil rights activist and organizational consultant Laura Branca. Both know how hard social change can be, but both are hopeful that progress is possible. Both also appreciate a local government that doesn’t just see the connections between social justice and climate change, but pushes hard to bring the two together.
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The Homelands Blog
Big plans for Big Oil
Sandy Tolan made five trips to North Dakota this past fall and winter to document the standoff between opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the pipeline’s supporters in government and business. As he reported on …
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The Homelands Blog
Groundwork
If the current presidential race has soured you on the democratic process, you might seek solace in the latest episode of Scene on Radio, an excellent podcast produced by our old pal John Biewen at Duke University’s Center for Documentary …
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The Homelands Blog
Alan Weisman: Have fewer kids
This month, as part of a special issue on the environment, VICE Magazine asked leading thinkers to weigh in with their ideas about what to do about climate change. Below is Homelands’ Alan Weisman‘s essay, based …
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Jonathan Miller
Special Projects
Power to the People
Jonathan Miller
Special Projects
Power to the People
As politicians argue about what to do about climate change, communities around the United States are taking matters into their own hands – pledging to reduce their carbon emissions, then hustling to make good on their promises. From Ithaca, NY, an hour-long special for State of the Re:Union.
Marguerite Wells is the manager of the future Black Oak Wind Farm in Enfield, NY, just west of Ithaca. The seven-turbine, 11.9 megawatt facility will be partly owned by local investors. Wells was running a green roof plant nursery when she started volunteering on the project. Now it’s a full-time job. Photo by Jonathan Miller
The climate is going haywire, and politicians are bickering over what to do about it, or whether to do anything at all. But around the country, communities are taking matters into their own hands, publicly pledging to shrink their carbon footprints, then setting out to make good on their promises. Leading, they hope, from below.
Mike McCoy works as an installer for Taitem Engineering, an Ithaca firm that participated in the Solar Tompkins solar incentives program in 2014 and 2105. In one year, the program more than doubled the number of residential solar systems in the county. McCoy began as an apprentice and is now a full-time employee. Photo by Jonathan Miller
In this special hour for State of the Re:Union, guest producer Jonathan Miller gives us a tour of his uber-progressive but practical-minded hometown of Ithaca, New York, where citizens and civic leaders are hustling to wean themselves from fossil fuels.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Judy Hyman for composing and performing most of the music in the program. Also thanks to Peter Bardaglio (Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative), Gay Nicholson (Sustainable Tompkins), Ed Marx and Katie Borgella (Tompkins County Planning Department), City and Town of Ithaca Sustainability Planner Nick Goldsmith, Mike Sigler (Tompkins County Legislature), Jim Catalano, Dylan Brown, Annie and Marie Burns of The Burns Sisters, The Horse Flies, Jeff Claus, Richie Stearns, and the Cornell Glee Club.
A list of all the music heard on the program can be found here.
Links:
Black Oak Wind Farm
EcoVillage at Ithaca
Sustainable Tompkins
Sustainable Ithaca
Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative
Solar Tompkins
Cornell University Sustainable Campus
Tompkins County Sustainability
Town of Ithaca Sustainability
New York State “Reforming the Energy Vision” Initiative
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) -
The Homelands Blog
On SOTRU: Power to the People
We were thrilled to learn that State of the Re:Union, a terrific radio show dreamed up and hosted by poet and playwright Al Letson, has won a Peabody Award. The Peabodys are considered the most prestigious awards in broadcast …
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Food for 9 Billion
Exploring the challenge of keeping ourselves fed at a time of rapid social and environmental change.
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The Homelands Blog
Congratulations, Sam Eaton!
Sam Eaton, a freelance radio and video producer who contributed 10 of the features in the “Food for 9 Billion” project, has won the Society of Environmental Journalists‘ award for Environmental Beat Reporting in a …
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The Homelands Blog
When it comes to feeding the world, nothing will save us
One of the goals of the “Food for 9 Billion” project has been to show that keeping our growing number of selves fed (sustainably, equitably, healthily) is more than just a technical challenge. That’s because …
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The Homelands Blog
“What’s for Lunch” takes a global tour of the future of food
Keep your ears open for a new batch of What’s for Lunch radio stories about food and climate change on PRI’s The World. The series, part of the Food for 9 Billion project that Homelands Productions is producing with the Center for …
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Sam Eaton
Food for 9 Billion
Farmers in India Find Promise in Ancient Seeds
Sam Eaton
Food for 9 Billion
Farmers in India Find Promise in Ancient Seeds
In India, climate change is forcing farmers to adapt to saltwater intrusion, flooding, and droughts. Scientists are racing to breed a new generation of climate-resilient crops that can survive these changes. But many farmers are turning to the seeds that sustained their ancestors.
Researcher Debal Deb has been collecting traditional seed varieties and testing them with farmers in northeastern India. He says some of the ancient rice plants will survive in 12 feet of water for up to three months. Scientists at the International Rice Research Institute and elsewhere are trying to breed traits like this into modern, high-yielding varieties. Photo by Sam Eaton.
When a cyclone hits India, the sea-drenched soil can remain salty for years. You can see the evidence in the Ganges River delta, packed with more than 4 million people, four years after Cyclone Aila hit the region.
Farmers are finding that new high-yielding rice varieties are not withstanding the salty onslaught. Vegetables are also nearly impossible to grow.
The problem is expected to get worse as climate change brings higher sea levels, stronger storms, and more frequent droughts.
Scientists are racing to breed a new generation of climate-resilient crops that can survive these changes. But many farmers are turning to the seeds that sustained their ancestors.
This story was produced by The Center for Investigative Reporting.
Producer, Reporter, Camera: Sam Eaton
Editor: Linda Peckham
Additional Editing: Adithya Sambamurthy
Transcription: Karishma Suri
Archival Footage: Oxfam International
Thanks to: Soma Saha, WWF-India Sundarbans Program
Senior Producer: Stephen Talbot
Executive Producer: Sharon Tiller -
The Homelands Blog
Cafeteria lunch: Industrial kitchens dish out climate-friendly cuisine
By now most of us know that what we eat has an impact on the environment. And so more of us are putting our money where our mouths are—or our mouths where our money is—ordering …
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Jonathan Miller
Food for 9 Billion
Bangladesh Farmers Confront New Climate Reality
Jonathan Miller
Food for 9 Billion
Bangladesh Farmers Confront New Climate Reality
Bangladesh has made dramatic progress in feeding its people. Can it stop a changing climate from erasing the gains?
Muhammad Salauddin helps his father, Muhammad Sekendar, shore up the earthen platform that elevates their new house in southeast Bangladesh. Their old house was wiped away by a cyclone, and their land was saturated with salt. Photo by Jonathan Miller.
Bangladesh has made dramatic progress in feeding its people. Can it stop a changing climate from erasing the gains?
