Madison Parks hosts an annual Earth Day Challenge and this is the first time back since the pandemic. This year, hundreds of volunteers at almost 50 parks around the city helped with trash pickup, raking, mulching, and weeding. Feature story contributor Carrie Ann Welsh went out to talk to the volunteers at James Madison and […]
City of Madison unveils 2021 Recyclopedia
The city of Madison first started offering recycling services in September 1968. Bryan Johnson, the city’s Recycling Coordinator, says that makes our recycling program one of the oldest in the nation. “As far as municipal curbside pick-up, we’re older than everybody else because we’re two years older than Earth Day, we started picking up newspapers […]
On Earth Day, a pledge to plant more trees
Earth Day was founded fifty-one years ago, by former Wisconsin Governor and US Senator Gaylord Nelson, who pushed for a day to raise awareness about environmental challenges. And today, our current governor pledged to conserve and restore forestland in Wisconsin. As part of his Earth Day pledge, Governor Evers committed to conserve 125,000 acres of forest […]
Taking Stock of the World’s Waste
As part of our annual Earth Day programming, on today’s show we do a deep “dumpster dive” into the world of waste: food waste, medical waste, construction waste, e-waste, and more. Our guest is Kate O’Neill, author of the book Waste, which traces the emergence of the global political economy of waste. She and Patty […]
Reflecting on Earth Day
Most of the Perpetual Notion Machine’s listeners probably know that Earth Day, April 22, has come and gone with very little fanfare. But the purpose of Earth Day is no different now than when it was first created by Wisconsin’s own Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970, to raise awareness of the threats to our natural […]
Earth Day Special: Food, Farming, and Politics
Today on the show, we celebrate Earth Day by hosting Sarah Lloyd, director of special projects at the Wisconsin Farmers Union, in the studio for a conversation about agriculture and dairy farming in Wisconsin. What is the future of family farming? This free-ranging conversation covers issues like agro-business, debt in farming, the role of distribution […]
