PR pro James Hoggan has decoded misinformation campaigns, and researched how humans learn, respond and can be manipulated. He's traveled through the "perfect storm" of climate communications, and explored what spurs us to become aggressively close-minded. These voyages into realms of despair have not dimmed his curious spirit, his determination to do, be, and communicate better.

Photos: Earthworms guest James Hoggan.  Hoggan (right) talking with scientist and environmentalist David Suzuki (left) and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, colleagues referenced in this interview. 

Our conversation draws from Hoggan's book I'm Right and You're an Idiot  - the toxic state of public discourse and how to clean it up (2nd edition 2019, New Society Publisher). We're focused especially on the latter part of the message. May you find this encouraging!

Learn more from James Hoggan's DeSmogBlog.

Music: Big Piney Blues, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran
THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms thoughtfully green engineer.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Handprints: Gregory Norris Retouches Human Impacts (March 2019)

Climate - A New Story with Charles Eisenstein (Nov 2018)

Nuclear power plants. Radioactive waste from building the WWII atomic bombs. Low-grade nuclear weapons waste. Nuclear medicine.  These complicated technical issues are hardly citizen stuff, except for Kay Drey. 

Nuclear focused groups here and abroad consider St. Louis "ordinary citizen" Kay Drey as both ally and expert resource in their work. For well over 40 years, Kay has dug into these issues, both vetted researched them with science and policy professionals, and spoken up about them in countless public forums.

More impressive than her own advocacy, according to her longtime colleagues and friends Arlene Sandler (Board member for Missouri Coalition for the Environment) and special librarian Rebecca Wright, is how Kay has empowered countless fellow ordinary citizens to get up and testify, with personal viewpoints and facts, armed with info from Kay's files.

Kay Drey is an untiring opponent for causes she espouses, especially nuclear power, and an enviro Living Treasure in Missouri. Earthworms owes a great debt to Kay: in the show's first year her call to cover nuclear waste transportation issues affirmed for volunteer host Jean Ponzi that these conversations on KDHX were a real and necessary community service. Thank you, Kay Drey!

Kay is also a founding member of Missouri Coalition for the Environment. MCE is celebrating 50 years of achievement in 2019. This conversation with Kay Drey is one in a series of Earthworms tributes to the work of MCE, especially the people who help it grow.

Music: Bitter Root, performed live at KDHX by Matt Flinner
THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer and Partner-In-Green

Related Earthworms Conversations: 

A Tribute to Leo Drey (June 2015) 

MCE Food Policy Update (June 2019) 

Peoples' Pocket Guide to Environmental Action with Caitlin Zera (July 2017)

As littered plastic from our bottles, bags, straws and more gets swept from streets to creeks to oceans, where the kinds of creatures we eat are eating plastic that passes to us, humans are growing more aware of this Plastic Pollution problem. But what can we do?

EcoChallenge.org leads a friendly competition for teams of people, nation-wide, who want move toward living Plastic-Free. Here is St. Louis, teams are taking this challenge from leading cultural institutions like Missouri Botanical Garden and the Saint Louis Zoo. From a wide range of learning and action options, EcoChallenge participants are tracking their Plastic-Free progress throughout this month of July. The program's goal is to build awareness and habits that persist when this summer's EcoChallenge ends.

 
EcoChallenge Director of Learning Lacy Cagle returns to Earthworms, detailing this initiative's What and Why. Joyce Gorrell, Green Team leader and Sustainability Projects  Manager for the Garden's EarthWays Center, joins Lacy to share what's motivating her, and her Garden EcoChallenge team.  

Listening to this Earthworms edition in July? Check out this Challenge!

Music: Jamie, performed live at KDHX by Yankee Racers

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer and partner-in-Green

Related Earthworms Conversations: Life Without Plastic? Jay Sinha says Emphatically YES (Jan 2018)

Lacy Cagle: Learning Green, Living Greener (Oct 2017)

TerraCycle Founder Tom Szaky Rocks Recycling! (Sept 2015)

Joyce Gorrell: How TerraCycle Works (Sept 2015)

Reduce, Prevent and Transform Waste with Kelly Dennings (Feb 2019)

Sometimes, here on Earthworms, we focus our conversation on one unique element of Life on Earth. This time it's Squirrels.

Don Corrigan - respected local newspaper editor, college professor and ranconteur - has done this too, with his new book Nuts About Squirrels, The Rodents That Conquered Popular Culture (McFarland, 2019). His talks on this topic are wildly popular, hear?

Don's research has unearthed nuggets about TV, movie, radio, cartoon, sports, community and Civil War squirrels. He also finds squirrels raising genuine enviro-awareness, right in our own backyards:

• Is climate change causing squirrels in America to migrate north, or move up into mountain elevations?
• Do humans bear any responsibility for disrupting squirrel habitat?
• Are squirrels better equipped than we are to deal with effects of climate change?

Keep your mind open and the holes in your house eaves closed up, to enjoy this salute to SQUIRRELS!

Thanks to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms fellow-enviro engineer

Music: Agnes Polka, performed live at KDHX by Chia Band

Popular Culture Related Earthworms Conversations: 

Population Media Center: Educating through Soap Operas (July 2017)

Jeff Ritter: KDHX 1st Voice On Air (and Ph.D. in American Culture,  July 2017)

And for those not so nuts about Squirrels: Humane Wildlife Solutions with Garry Guinn (March 2019)