Our Saint Louis Zoo is in the World Class of institutions of this kind. Make one click into the Zoo's Mission section and you'll find a strong, clear STL Zoo statement on Climate Change. 

Animal areas, especially the Zoo habitat of Kali the Polar Bear, interpret the meaning of Climate Change for visitors in ways that make connections between our human experience, the animals we admire and love, and Earth systems that support us all. But the Zoo doesn't stop there.

The STL Zoo Climate Communications Initiative is training Zoo staff, volunteers and community partners in a science-based set of frameworks to purposefully, actively converse with the public about Climate Change. Hannah Petri, the Zoo's Manager of Docents and Interpreters leads this effort, and talks with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi about taking up this crucial topic with our fellow human beings.

CLIMATE SOLUTIONS DAY at Saint Louis Zoo is Sunday September 29!

Source of these training materials is NNOCCI - the National Network for Oceanic and Climate Change Information. 

Music: For Michael, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations:

DRAWDOWN: Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Mar 2018)

Climate Rider Tim Oey (April 2019)

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

Slow Money's Woody Tasch on Culture, Poetry, Imagination, SOIL (July 2018)

Carl Pope: Creating a Climate of Hope (April 2018)

Enter the pathway, turn; you think you're headed right to center but - ho! you're on the outskirts of everything. Keep walking. In a Labyrinth, you can only (eventually) reach Center, then go steadily back to where you began. 

This kind of walking meditation is centuries old. Central Reform Congregation, active in the heart of St. Louis MO, is building a new pathway along these same lines, as artist and longtime CRC member Robert Fishbone leads a meditative labyrinth installation, part of the "Fitness Course for the Soul" on the grounds of CRC.

Joining Fishbone in this Earthworms conversation is Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow, from The Shalom Center in Philadelphia, who will visit CRC September 20-22 to speak about Faith and the Climate Crisis, and join STL youth for the Climate Strike on Sept 20 at City Hall. 

For the CRC labyrinth, Fishbone and CRC friends chose a "Jericho" design, representing the 7 walls around the ancient biblical city. CRC members and guests will construct this new feature of their urban sacred grounds on Sunday September 8, 1-4 pm; the public is welcome to join in the "honorable silence" of this meditative project, at the corner of Waterman and Kingshighway in St. Louis' Central West End.

Once installed on the grounds of CRC, the labyrinth will be accessible to serve as anyone's contemplative path.

Music: Balkan Twirl, performed live at KDHX by Sandy Weltman and the Carolbeth Trio

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms green-savvy audio engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: Chalk Riot Artist Liza Fishbone (May 2018)

Humans Listen Up in Ralph Nader's "Animal Envy" Fable (Nov 2016)