Tag: Mark Easter

The Carbon Footprint of Food

The Blue Plate in a Red-hot World (start time: 7:46) While adding cream to your morning cup of coffee, or digesting the hamburger that you grilled last night, you might not have been asking yourself, What’s the carbon footprint of these ingredients and meals? Understandable. Our guest today, ecologist Mark Easter, however, has pondered this question intensely for many years, when he grocery shops, plans his next meal, and researches. Easter is a so-called greenhouse gas accountant, one who measures the sources and sinks of GHG emissions from agricultural practices.
It’s a vexing and critical calculus. After all, agriculture generates more than 10 percent  of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Easter’s debut book,  The Blue Plate: A Food Lover’s Guide to Climate Chaos (Patagonia),  has just been published. It highlights not just the causes of our climate crisis, but also a growing number of farmers, ranchers and orchardists who are practicing low-carbon, soil-enhancing methods on their land, and as a result boosting their crop yields and revenues.

Hosts: Susan Moran, Joel Parker
Show Producer/Executive Producer: Susan Moran
Engineer: Joel Parker
Headline contributors: Beth Bennett, Joel Parker, Shelley Schlender
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The Dirt on Composting

Photo credit: CU Boulder

Composting for Human, Soil and Climate Health  (start time: 4:39) It’s late spring, when many people are out gardening, planting vegetables, and spreading compost on the soil to give those veggies a leg up. Composting also benefits the planet.  If dumped into landfills, organic waste breaks down and releases methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent, if shorter-lasting, than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Municipal solid waste landfills are a major source of methane emissions. On this week’s show, host Susan Moran talks with two experts about the climate, ecological and human health benefits of composting, and some roadblocks to increasing the low rates of composting in the U.S., including Colorado.  Dan Matsch is the director of the Compost Department at Eco-Cycle in Boulder. He had been a commercial organic farmer for many years. Mark Easter is an ecologist focusing on the  carbon footprint of food and fiber. He worked for many years as a research research associate at Colorado State University. And Mark is the author of the forthcoming book The Blue Plate: A Food Lover’s Guide to Climate Chaos (September 2024, Patagonia).

Hosts: Susan Moran, Joel Parker
Producer: Susan Moran
Engineer: Joel Parker
Headline contributor: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Shelley Schlener 

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:31 — 36.4MB)

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Composting & Carbon Farming

Eco-Cycle truck dumping organic waste at a compost facility. Photo credit: Dan Matsch
Eco-Cycle truck dumping organic waste at a compost facility. Photo credit: Dan Matsch

Why Compost? (start time: 7:01) Many of us may feel a little less guilty letting fruits and vegetables go bad, because we figure that this waste, thanks to curbside compost pickup, will be turned into nutritious food for crops, lawns or grasslands down the road. And landfills will spew less methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. The story of food waste and reuse is a complicated one. Our two guests are working on getting composting right — and ultimately on how to make our food-production and consumption systems more sustainable, starting here on the Front Range.  Dan Matsch directs the compost department for Eco-Cycle, the nonprofit recycler that works with cities along the Front Range. He also directs Eco-Cycle’s Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials (CHaRM). Mark Easter is an ecologist at Colorado State University’s Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory.  Matsch and Easter discuss with host Susan Moran the journey of a rotten zucchini, how composting is tied to the emerging practice of carbon farming, and how we all do our part.

Calendar advisory: Join KGNU and Eco-Cycle on Thursday, January 31, at the Longmont Museum (6:30 to 8:00 P.M) for a special community conversation on plastic waste–challenges and solutions. The event will include representatives from Eco-Cycle, the Inland Ocean Coalition, and local business and sustainability leaders. For more info, go to this website.

Hosts: Susan Moran, Chip Grandits
Producer: Susan Moran
Engineer: Chip Grandits
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett
Additional contributions: Beth Bennett

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:10 — 24.9MB)

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