National Parks Archive

Featured Stories

• Passive-Solar Greenhouse-Wrapped Nature House in Sweden
  Posted on January 26, 2020 | No Comments

  In 1974, architect Bengt Warne designed the prototype for a greenhouse home to deal with the cold winters in Sweden. Rather than converting an existing structure and moving inside it, he built a normal house -- and then encasing it in glass -- a Nature House (or "Naturhus" ). Inspired by these designs, a family has created a home near Stockholm integrated with the elements of earth, water, air, and fire. The electricity bills have been cut in half, heated by an eco-friendly wood-burning oven and a hot water masonry heater. The greenhouse also shelters Mediterranean-style gardens that couldn't survive the Swedish seasons -- figs, kiwi, peaches, wine grapes, etc.

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• Martin Luther King: Peace and Civil Rights Must Mix
  Posted on January 22, 2020 | No Comments

  For Dr. Martin Luther King, civil rights and economic justice were his most important issues. He also became a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy and the Vietnam War. We play his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, which he delivered at New York City’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, as well as his last speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” that he gave on April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929. He was assassinated April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was just 39 years old. 

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• Wixárika/Huichol People: Protecting Sacred Lands of Mexico
  Posted on December 10, 2019 | 1 Comment

  In this EcoJustice Radio episode, we discuss the struggle to protect the sacred lands and culture of the Wixárika people, also known popularly as the Huichol, an indigenous group inhabiting the remote reaches of the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico. Our guests are Andrea Perez, Indigenous Environmental Justice Advocate, and Susana Valadez Director of the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and Traditional Arts. Jessica Aldridge did the interview.

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• Samuel Beckett, Confessions and the Human Condition
  Posted on December 5, 2019 | 1 Comment

  Samuel Beckett’s legacy endures, and reaches far beyond the written word. Of all the English-language modernists, Beckett's work represents the most sustained attack on the realist tradition, dispensing with conventional plot and the unities of time and place in order to focus on essential components of the human condition.

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• “Bleeding Kansas” and Stories of the Underground Railroad
  Posted on December 3, 2019 | 2 Comments

  Bleeding Kansas is the term used to described the period of violence during the settling of the Kansas territory between 1854 and 1861. At the core of the conflict was the question of whether the Kansas Territory would allow or outlaw slavery, and enter the Union as a free state. Check out the documentary Dawn of Day, Stories of the Underground Railroad.

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• Jesse Marquez: Public Preparedness for Threats from Refineries, Ports, and Freeways
  Posted on November 27, 2019 | 1 Comment

  Environmental Justice Activist Jesse Marquez speaks with EcoJustice Radio how communities can prepare to confront the dangers of living around five oil refineries, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and hemmed in by the truck-clogged 710 and 110 freeways.

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• Urban Oil Drilling and the Intersection Between Faith and Environmentalism
  Posted on November 20, 2019 | 1 Comment

  On Episode 45 of EcoJustice Radio our guest Reverend Oliver Buie, Minister of Community Engagement at the Holman United Methodist Church in South Los Angeles, speaks with Jessica Aldridge on the important relationship between faith and environmentalism and what his parish has been doing to promote environmental and social justice in their community. As a member of the Steering Committee of STAND-LA, he speaks to the environmental justice movement to institute a 2,500-foot health and safety buffer between oil drilling and where people live, in particular motivated by the Murphy Oil Drilling site near his South Los Angeles church.

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• Regenerative Responses: Growing The Soil Carbon Sponge
  Posted on November 2, 2019 | 1 Comment

  Weather extremes, soil degradation, and climate disruption have turned our attention to the potential of soil, carbon, and water cycling as a formidable and creative response to climate change. EcoJustice Radio talks with Linda Gibbs about building the soil carbon sponge for resilience to wildfires and climate change.

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• How Urban Forestry Can Cool the Climate and Promote Social Equity
  Posted on October 25, 2019 | 1 Comment

  This episode of EcoJustice Radio we speak with Los Angeles's North East Trees organization regarding the powerful effect urban forests have on the health and well-being of our communities and the climate in general. We also look into programs that are working within those communities to provide equitable solutions, green jobs, and open spaces.

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• Sampling of Found Sound – Composer Pierre Henry
  Posted on October 17, 2019 | No Comments

  The Art Of Sounds is a 2007 documentary on French electronic music pioneer Pierre Henry (1927 – 2017). Henry, along with his colleague Pierre Schaeffer, creating a form they dubbed musique concrète – an approach to electronic music based on using recorded sampling (also known as ‘found-object’) as source material.

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