Five Australian senior citizens who are committed to the environment, both in terms of reversing damage already done to our planet’s eco-system, and ensuring it doesn’t continue, are the subjects of today’s podcast. Their stories are featured in an article published by the Sydney Morning Herald.

More proof that individual effort, based on one’s skills and background, are empowering the groundswell of grassroots environmentalism around the world.

You can hear the podcast at The Lindberg Report.

They have an honorable history, having survived the Depression, had a hand in defeating the enemies of freedom in World War II, created the United Nations, and overcame the Cold War. Some have called them the "Civic Generation" because they took an interest in voting, public affairs, civil rights and civil liberties. Today, they admit to exploiting earth’s limited resources, polluting the air and our drinking water and lumbering blindly on to global warming.

Today, a group of seniors at a retirement home in Hamden, CT, have formed their own organization, GrayisGreen, and authored The Handbook on Conservation for Retirement Communities (MS Word doc). They are another link in the expanding network of seniors stepping up and making a difference in their surroundings, and ours.

My thanks to Joyce Emery of Green Seniors for the lead to this amazing group of elders.

If you’ve ever been to San Francisco, or lived there for a time as I have, you can’t help but be charmed by the city, but also aware of the natural beauty of the entire 9 county bay area. That charm and beauty, in many cases, was won in difficult and often contentious battles between environmentalists, governments and developers to name a few.

San Francisco author John Hart and photographer Nancy Kittle have put together a wonderful book about 50 notable "elders" who helped shape the area with their committment to the environment and conservation. This is a review of Legacy, and the impact the "elders" have had on the bay area.

Ever wonder what these plants are saying to one another? Researchers in the Netherlands say there’s an early-warning network in place. Is it only clover, no, many herbal plants have been studied.

And what about talking to your plants,does that work? And can one plant feel inferior to another?

It’s all included here, on Greening the Golden Years Podcast.

85 year old Liz Moore is nobody’s fool. The minute she laid eyes on Syncrude’s Canadian Oil Sands operation in Alberta, Canada, she knew some terrible things were happening to the ecology of that area. While touring the company’s site, she took pictures of land not reclaimed, a few snapshots in the visitors center, and came home to Colorado bound to tell a story. She set up a website, The Oil (Tar) Sands of Alberta The Canada/U.S. Connection, and published her pictures along with some interesting facts about the operation.

Almost immediately, Syncrude’s legal staff wrote her and demanded she remove the pictures she had taken. Shortly thereafter, the company’s publishing firm did the same, as did the Alberta provincial government concerning pictures of the Oil Sands Discovery Center which they helped fund.

Liz also maintains another website: Energy Smart

Here is her story….

Just recently I received an email from a senior, Mr. John Lane, who’s become very interested in a group called “PETH,” but he failed to say what it was all about. So, being the curious one, I called him and had the most “interesting” conversation. Look out, PETA — here comes the People for the Ethical Treatment of Hops.

The podcast is here.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

She’s the mother of eight, the grandmother of 15 and a great-grandmother to seven, she enjoys crossword and jigsaw puzzles, and quilting. Marjorie lives in Nicholson Township, Pennsylvania and, like many people enjoys an occasional walk along the road in her rural area. There’s nothing unusual about that, but Marjorie makes that walk a study in environmental consciousness.

That’s Marjorie on the right, out on the road with her trash bag and a long, jaw-like grab stick to help in snagging discarded objects. And who wouldn’t like to be greeted with that smile? Marjorie’s story was told in the Scranton, PA Times-Tribune, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk with her.

Back on August 2, 2007, I did a podcast featuring three women — two Chileans and a Canadian — who had run afoul of the law in their respective countries. The Canadian is Betty Krawczyk, and I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing her by phone from her prison cell.

She’s intelligent, charming, and an outspoken proponent for environmental and civil rights issues. Our interview touches on Betty’s evaluation of the Canadian court system, her first eyewitness account of discrimination and cruelty, and the events that led to leaving her native Louisiana with a husband and six children to settle in Canada.

Links:

Betty’s Early Edition

Books of Betty K.

The Raging Grannies, pursuers of activist causes since 1986 are still going strong. From humble beginnings as a peace group in Canada, to The Today Show, magazine articles, newspaper and tv coverage, the grannies have a rich history. They’ve been arrested, investigated, cheered and jeered, but still they go out and rage for change.

Join me in a look at the history and accomplishments of this group of seniors who are as much at home making brownies for their grandchildren as they are in front of a military recruiters office, trying to dissuade young men and women from joining the military. Shrinking violets they aren’t, and that makes their story even more interesting.

Here’s another one who thinks nuclear power is the energy panacea we all need, and that renewable energy production is, as he states, "a rape of nature." Strong words and I just had to talk about it. The story comes from Science Daily, and there’s also a link to Nuclear Waste Storage that pretty well explains the problem, and takes a good look at the controversial Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada.