This year's Farm Bill will determine whether US agriculture cuts its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. Republicans want to divert $20 billion away from agricultural climate solutions. Farmers who've adopted these practices say they increase soil carbon and climate resilience. We hear stories from farmers about compost, cover crops, prescribed grazing, and more. Sustainable agriculture advocates Renata Brillinger of the California Climate and Agriculture Network and Erik Kamrath from the Union of Concerned Scientists advise us what to tell our Congresspeople. (It's simple).  ..read more

The David who fought Goliath had two sisters. This is the modern day story about two women taking on a giant. They started alone, standing up against a huge multinational petrochemical corporation, and won. Diane Wilson, a fisherwoman from Seadrift Texas, won the largest ever penalty in a citizen clean water lawsuit, defending her bay from plastic pollution. Sharon Lavigne of St James Parish, Louisiana, stopped the same company, Formosa Plastics, from building the largest petrochemical plant in the world in her small Black community.   This is an updated story first broadcast in 2021 ..read more

80% of the buildings that will be here in 2050 are already built and they cause 40% of our greenhouse gas emissions.  How will we get them off fossil fuel? This is the story of a research collaboration between the city of Chicago, community organizations, a utility, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to find out the best way to retrofit homes and lower energy bills for the city's low income residents. They discovered it can be done and is simpler than you think.  ..read more

A pilot study replacing gas stoves with induction stoves in a public housing building in the South Bronx did the expected and decreased indoor air pollution. Two unexpected discoveries were the popularity of the induction stoves and that the building's old wiring could only deliver enough juice to replace stoves in a fraction of the apartments. Replacing all the gas stoves with induction stoves and the building's broken boiler with heat pumps will require an expensive electrical upgrade. To avoid those costs in the future, NYCHA used its  purchasing power to get manufacturers to build hea ..read more

"When I read in 2020 that Colorado ran a pilot program to give away just 13 e-bikes, I scoffed. What difference could that possibly make? Now I have to eat my bike helmet."- Wendy Ring, Cool Solutions Producer and Host.  Turns out that mini-pilot laid the foundation for Denver's wildly successful e-bike program by proving that e-bikes cut car trips and emissions and that low income folks want to ride them. Denver's program became the model for a statewide program. And e, by the way, also stands for equity. The consistent emphasis on removing economic barriers to bikes is building pressure ..read more

With growing conflicts over solar development on farm land, dual use may provide middle ground and enough income to help small farmers keep farming. That's how Byron Kominek found himself putting a solar garden on one of his hay fields and hosting teams of agrivoltaic researchers. Colorado farmers Byron Kominek and Liza McConnell and Jordan Macknick, head of agrivoltaic research at the National Renewable Energy Lab,  find some crops grow better and use less water with solar shade than in direct sun.  ..read more

Meet a retiree in rural OR and a group of millennials in WA who are spreading community owned solar projects across their states.   ..read more

We don't have to wait for utilities or for-profit solar developers to expand solar power in our communities and, if we do it right, we can keep the dollars local. Activists from a small town in OR and the mid sized city Olympia,WA are spreading their successful models for community owned solar.   Community solar is commonly defined as a system where subscribers in one place get bill credits from a shared solar project somewhere else, but most community solar in the US benefits corporations more than communities.   A group of young people in Olympia WA figured out how to wor ..read more

A small group of garment workers, tired of factory wage theft, organized and won passage of a law that makes fashion brands responsible for unpaid wages. Hourly pay went from a shameful $5 an hour to a minimum of $15 an hour. Now a similar bill is going to Congress ..read more

Part One of a mini-series exploring potential pathways to a sustainable garment industry. We explore some routes to slow fashion: restoring regional wool production in Pennsylvania, curbside pickup of used clothes in Massachusetts, second hand clothes, and raising garment worker wages      ..read more