January 5 Earthgauge radio podcast: Students on Ice Antarctic expedition and Sandra Steingraber
Click the audio player to listen to the latest edition of Earthgauge radio, which is a bi-weekly broadcast every other Thursday morning from 7-8 AM on CKCU 93.1 FM in Ottawa. You can also right click here to download the show.
On Earthgauge this week, we’re talking about environmental education and environmental health:
- Tony Dekker of the Great Lake Swimmers
- Geoff Green, founder of the environmental education organization Students on Ice
- Author, activist and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber
First up, it’s snow, ice and the ends of the Earth. The environmental education organization Students on Ice has just departed on an Antarctic expedition with 60 high school students and an international team of scientists, educators, journalists, artists, leaders and polar experts. Among the participants is Tony Dekker, singer/songwriter for the Juno-nominated band Great Lake Swimmers.
I talked to Tony about his role on the expedition and why he wanted to take part. I also speak with Geoff Green, the SOI founder, about the work of his organization and what he hopes to achieve. This program, now in its tenth year, has taken over 1,800 students, teachers and scientists from around the world on expeditions to the Arctic and the Antarctic. The goal is to give the world’s youth a heightened understanding and respect for the planet’s global ecosystem, and the inspiration to protect it. Could part of the solution to the environmental crisis rest ultimately in better environmental education programs for our youth?
Finally, as this is the final show of 2011, I replay one of the most important interviews I did this year. It was with environmental health activist and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber. Her message is one that all of us should hear.
Steingraber is an inspirational author, activist, poet, scientist and cancer survivor. She is an internationally recognized authority on the environmental links to cancer and human health who has been compared to the pioneering environmental health activist Rachel Carson. Steingraber’s most recent book is called Raising Elijah: Protecting Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis, which Naomi Wolf said “could be the most important and inspiring parenting book ever written.”
Steingraber writes weekly environmental essays for the Huffington Post and now a new documentary film has been produced based on her groundbreaking book, Living Downstream. She also contributed an article to a recent edition of Alternatives Journal called Coal, Oil and Cancer, in which she explains how fossil fuels are not only causing climate change, they are also causing cancer.
Please get in touch if you have any comments, suggestions or if you want to get involved or contribute to the show. Contact me at earthgaugeradio ‘at’ gmail.com.
