Work in Progress radio buckle come back so it's a pleasure to be with you Britney always good to have you back and you've got a very special guest with you today i do i have Senator Gary Peters from the great state of Michigan a longtime friend and a logger friend of Labor senator Peters thanks for joining us today well bucket's always always a pleasure to be with you thanks for having me on I know things are and I like I said I know you're extremely busy with everything is going on so we really do appreciate today on the start of a little bit about something you brought up it's called the Small Business employee ownership legislation tell us a little bit about that and and then perhaps where we're at. Well it is legislation to expand employee ownership of companies through Aesop plans which are really employees stock ownership plans what happens an arm lay is a owner of a company wants to leave the company but rather than selling the company to another owner or to some outside entrances some sort of outside interest they actually sell the company to the employees the employees become owners of the company they own shares in the company they have a strong ownership stake and are involved in management and so it's a great opportunity for people to become owners of the company that they've worked at oftentimes for many years and it is a model that has proven incredibly successful in terms of the company companies that are Aesop companies that are employee owned outperform companies that are not employee owned and we can certainly can understand why if employees are owners they're going to do everything they can to make that company more productive because they actually reap the benefits of that company as an owner of the company Yossel fi and that their wages tend to be higher anywhere from 5 to 12 percent higher than wages of a company similar type of company that's not on by the employees and because the shares of the company are put into their retirement account you will find that the retirement accounts of these employees are roughly on average about 2 and a half times larger than somebody who works for a similar company that's not employee owned and in my mind this is where we need to be going we are saying increasing not only income inequality but more importantly wealth inequality were a few folks have most of the wealth in this country and the rest of us do not that is in my mind unsustainable for a for a strong democracy you can't have a strong middle class you can have a strong and. To me if people don't have money in their pocket and have the ability to buy products and have the financial security that goes with ownership so the South plans are very important there are several 1000 of them that currently exist but I would like to expand that number and so what my legislation does is it works with the Small Business Administration organization called Score which are basically volunteers that advise smaller businesses these are experienced folks who have various business experience and they have volunteered service of small businesses and this legislation will empower them to work with owners to develop Aesop plans in their business so I think a lot more people would do this if they knew about it unfortunately you know it's not easy it's complicated so you need some help to do it that small business administration and Skaar working together I think could make a meaningful impact to bring this opportunity to more businesses and more importantly bring this opportunity to more employees who then become owners of their company. Or do you find that companies are corporations are. That light the fire thing like this well they do and that's why it's important to get this information out these are these are owners who own this company for a while but they want to retire they want to leave the company and so what they offer Well they may want to sell the company because they don't want to run it anymore and they put it out on the market and sell it to a Wall Street private equity firm or another business but I will be fined and I certainly find that owners if they could sell it to their employees people who they work with probably built this business with them you know some of these employees have been there a long time and they want to they want to leave a legacy of their business and they want to be healthy they want to be strong and these are folks that they trust these are probably people they hire they meant hard they trained they work shoulder and shoulder with and if they can pass that off to them and create a financial structure that allows them to retire to get their money out of the business but in the process transfer it to the employees who own it that's that's a true win when. You can see successful businesses around the state like I was at a business last year on my motorcycle 2 are across Michigan I was at our business on the west side of the state and there are folks who are who are with a company a while from a variety of jobs from working in the warehouse to working in the front office in a. Secretarial capacity and they were literally became millionaires because of their ownership in the company I mean these these are great stories. And where we have witnesses. And so far and say the legislators Well I've introduced it with a Republican colleague of mine Senator Risch and he is actually the chair of the committee and so we're hoping to get a markup fairly soon to get it out of the Small Business Committee and on to the Senate floor I think this is a pretty straightforward bill that should not be controversy out of this this is one that I hope to move fairly quickly and this is just about getting more information out to people so they realize really the incredibly powerful benefits of Aesop plan. Sounds wonderful because they're you know happy employees are productive employees and I think this is a way to keep everybody happy so I absolutely there's no question and having the opportunity to have an ownership stake to have it in your retirement account you know if it's fairly straightforward what people want in this country and we've got to make sure everybody has that opportunity and that means if you work hard you should get a fair wage you should have a quality affordable health care when it's all said and done after you work your life you should be able to retire with dignity and and having an opportunity to be in a nice up company certainly qualifies for that and it's been a proven success over the years where these occur. Well that's that's great and I think that that we should all of pay attention to this and like I said and then encourage or our employers to basically take part in this also. You know one of the things we're going to shift gears a little here and you talked about and we I think we've talked about this before but I'd like to talk about us more is called the outsourcing Accountability Act And this is something that you brought up and I think we talked about a few months ago tell our listeners what this is and then and where we're at with that. Well bucko you're right we talked about this before and we're still moving it through the Senate working to get some additional co-sponsors but this deals with an issue that we have to deal with as a country and that's the outsourcing of good paying American jobs we've got to put a stop to that we can't allow and stand idly by when our good paying jobs are being sent to China and Guatemala and other places all across the globe we've got to keep those jobs here and one way to do that in my mind and it's again a pretty straightforward bill that will help us do that is to shine some light on this practice as to how many jobs are actually being sent overseas I was I was surprised as I went into this working on this issue that the data is really pretty sparse that we don't know exactly how many jobs are going overseas it's all anecdotal evidence nothing really hard numbers and I think that's unacceptable we have to know where American employees are what companies are hiring Americans and so the way to do that is through my legislation which is the outsourcing Accountability Act and what it feels with our large companies that currently trade on the stock exchanges and where they trade on the stock exchanges they are required by the f.c.c. To provide a whole lot of list financial data and make it public and that So investors folks are buying shares in the stock if you and I want to buy a share and a company we should be able to look at its financial see whether or not it's worthy of our investment or not so all of that is made public and one of the things that they currently make public under law is how many employees work for the company pretty straightforward certainly isn't Esther's we should know how many people work there my bill takes it one step further and says Where are those employees working where they employ we know how many employees. So you have but where are they are they in the United States are they in China are they in Latin American countries where are they and I think that's incredibly important information because I want to know how many Americans work for a company and if they're adding employees are they adding employees in the United States or are they having them in China because they're adding them in China if that company comes to me and says we need some tax break or we know this or that in order to hire people my 1st question is are you going to hire them in the United States and if they are American workers we will try to help but we're not going to help you take your operations and send them to China that's simply unacceptable and I want to have that information available so as a policymaker we need to do it but I also think you know all of the rest of us as consumers when we're buying and selling goods we should know that information if I if I have a choice and I'm sure your listeners block what they say the same thing if you have a choice of 2 different companies that are offering a product that you like and you know that one company makes that product with American workers and the other one with workers from another country I believe most of us will pick the company that hires American workers we're going to report American jobs if companies know that we know how many people they have in the United States versus overseas so that gives them a pretty strong and set of and they can little market this is a we're an American company with American workers we're not an American company with Chinese workers I want to American workers we've got to keep those jobs here and I think it will incentivize companies to bring jobs back to the United States as well so we will have the power of consumers that will have information to make these kinds of choices Well Senator Peters I'm back we've got to take a quick break but we'll be right back at this is a great conversation I'd love to back up on this underneath your Listen to the union and slavers talk radio the average time a resume spends on an h.r. Managers desk is 7 seconds and most of them are tossed aside Now imagine if one of those resumes. Who was living in the shelter juggling 3 jobs have to be resilient that's something that you can't we rely so much on a resume yet it could never told the full story of someone who had to be independent and take initiative and that's how I handle every project they discover new ways to develop great talent grads of life dot org brought to you by graduates and the council. To welcome back to the union and to Labor's talk radio I'm British East and thank you guys for tuning in and joining us we've been having a lot of fun and I hope you guys have been enjoying the interviews today back with us right now we've got back you know of work in progress radio Welcome back great to be with you always and you've got a very special guest a teacher I do have Senator here for years from the great state of Michigan a longtime friend of working men and women Thank you very much for joining us today Senator appreciate it great to be with you buck as always you know we're for we took a break we were talking about the outsourcing the car ability act my question of yours how does how does this work out how does the do you how does that would require more work for lawyers to let you know this number I mean there's a just when they ask for a tax cut or how does that work you know this should be the numbers that they have to put out regularly as far as they're reporting these are companies that train on the Stock Exchange they have to report financial data on a quarterly basis and one of the one of the things they have to report right now this is required is how many employees you have you know jesters have a one of the things investors will want to look at is how many employers shall my bill was strange for and it just says when you already make that report tell us not only how many people you have but also where they are employed if they're in the United States or if they're overseas and so it doesn't really add additional burden in fact you know there's been some companies that have come back and they said you know this is another record this is another burden on us we have some more paperwork to file and we have to figure this out and I just I just have to shake my head when they say that I should come out are you telling me you do not know where you send your paychecks ever. 2 weeks but you know exactly where they said no it's paychecks and if they're sending them to China they know that that's literally a push of the button on a computer to give that information which they're already required to tell us how many employees they have just tell us where they are so it's very straightforward we will know this real time which is important not just for us as policymakers as we talked about before the break but also as we talked about before the break this is important for us as consumers as customers we would have that information and know it be easy to find a way to make sure that it's easily accessible to everybody to know exactly what what where what company they're dealing with and how many employees they have in the United States versus other countries. Well you know like I said at the vet's that's a good thing for us now as consumers because we can we can make those choices. We could we could shift gears a little bit we're going to keep your vision pretty busy you know you've always talked about the importance of job training and the role of labor unions in that type of training but it seems there over the years. That's kind of waning a little bit tell us a little bit about the importance of employer training and in the importance of labor unions in that role. Their labor unions are absolutely essential to this role and I appreciate you bringing that up we just had a hearing with the Joint Economic Committee which I'm on about job training and the skills gap that we're finding in a lot of folks who there are job openings but the training isn't there a lot of the training is in skilled trades building trades for example and so there was a lot of talk about how we're going to get this training available to folks and my responses it's it's pretty easy we already have great training programs that are provided basically free to folks and those are called labor apprenticeship programs if you go into an apprenticeship program these are these are programs where you get outstanding trade. You come out as a person with skilled that can command a good wage employers when they get labor from a labor union whose labor union employee who has gone through an apprenticeship program will have know that they have the skills and training necessary to get the job done right you know you can hire sometimes contractors but you don't really know the training that those employees have had but when you hire union contractor with union employees who've been through a union apprenticeship program and I've had the privilege of going to a number of apprenticeship training programs around the state of Michigan with Friday of our my friends in labor and they are incredibly impressive facilities the type of training is is outstanding and the folks that come out of that know they've got a long term career there right now isn't it isn't high demand I mean we need more building trades folks you know we need carpenters we need plumbers we need electricians all of those jobs are ready to be filled but that's why we've got to be in a position to encourage and expand Union apprenticeship programs. And then that's always been the argument for a long time senator is that we had these training facilities and it seems sometimes where we have a group of people to pick on a political party that has worked against us for many years. And one of the things that you know I know this has been a busy day but let's take a few minutes here and tell us tell us what we should do what what should we in Michigan do basically about this health care law I know we have you and Senator Stabenow and fighting force and the Health Care Act But tell us what we can do to kind of help the rest of the people in this country what about health care law. So I think it's it's incredibly important now more than ever just for people to make sure that their voice is heard we've got proposals and now in the Senate we've taken up the healthcare debate just last. Tonight we had that memo and luckily we were able to defeat it because we were united as a Democratic caucus and were able to pick up a few Republicans but Ted Cruz offered an amendment that basically was scarred by the independent Congressional Budget Office the group that we have here in Congress to give us bipartisan independent expert advice and they said that his amendment would increase insurance premiums for everybody across the board up to 20 percent we can't take 20 percent increases in the insurance premiums and at the same time insurance companies will be able to offer plans that you would find if you got sick actually doesn't they don't really cover anything they were going to be inadequate plans so luckily we were able to defeat that and part of our ability to do that is because people are raising their voices they are they're calling their elected officials and even though this is in the Senate right now if we if the bill does get out of the Senate is going to go back to the house and so all of the members of the u.s. House throughout Michigan will have another chance to vote on this bill so people need to reach out to your members of Congress both in the house and I'm certainly happy to call her folks can call my office as well we love to hear from Red residents of Michigan to call us House members and let them know that this is simply unacceptable that in this country that in this great country of ours we should be focused on the principle that no matter who you are no matter where you live you should have access to quality affordable health care we can do that we must do that other countries do it why are we not doing in the United States so this this debate and with the Republicans trying to push a plan that passed out of the house which has been said will mean that over 20000000 Americans will lose their health care coverage while premiums go up and folks with preexisting conditions may not get insurance that's not health care that's going the wrong direction it's important for us to to make sure that our voices heard you look at public. Opinion polls of vast majority of people are opposed to this and yet the Republicans keep pushing it forward because of their their agenda to help. Special interests and give tax breaks to wealthy folks that's not the country I want to live in I want to live in a country which understand that every single person is important and everybody should have access to affordable health care goes back to the comment I made earlier that you know folks want to be able to work hard get a good wage for their work they want to fordable health care for their families and they want to retire with dignity let's focus on those core issues let's not cater to special interest and folks who want tax breaks who are already doing extremely well that's the Republican focus I want to focus on everyday Americans that being said Senator for years thank you very much for joining us today on the edge we really do appreciate it for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us today well I appreciate a buck always a pleasure take care. That being said for Charles Showalter as well back on British bucks you know when you're listening to the minutes later stock radio. Hello welcome back I'm Cheryl sure was are you listening to the you know just labors Talk Radio thank you very much material with 1st but you know folks are going to start over to You Tube video featuring 17 and I may have a more formal. I think some of these are going on around here to leave at least 3 states but I don't know listen we're talking with her no spark she is a teacher elementary music teacher in a school district that's challenging for number different reasons. 1st off I want to say thank you for being a teacher God bless you for doing the right thing and God bless you for you know I we keep hearing about you know my my son's I'm asking Ok he's really really really good at math but you know math alone does not make a great person you've got to have the arts and mix in with the sciences and music is such a very important thing and I. I once heard a music teacher describe music is mass to us it is and and it's it's universal and it's an important part of any culture yes it is. But not only are you a music teacher and you're a you're melding young minds but you're also concerned about them going on and moving on to closer to what Dalton had. In one of the concerns you've got is student loans yes this is killing us it is I but I fully stipulate to that. How how is it doing well what with student loans one thing is that women. And minorities we're the ones that are getting say the short end of the stick because a lot of us are the 1st ones going to school and so we don't have that background knowledge and so if someone says hey if you sign this document we can get you into school and the 1st thing we say is Ok we never read the fine print and so we're just thinking once I get out of school I'm going to get a great job and I want to be able to get back to Sloan Well you get out of school oh you can go Barron's Ok I don't know what a forbearance is but Ok that means I don't have to make a payment right now right and you can do it again and again and again Oh you do this you can do another forbears and so but no one talks you about interest when. And how it capitalizes over and over again and. You can only default 3 times once you default on the 3rd time they take everything. They have come for your car they're come for your house and they take your paycheck and. There's no doubt you can buy your family and you know everyone things Chapter 13 you don't want to go and just take everything well student loans never go away it never goes away and so there's nothing you can do but pay them off and the means is not there for a lot of people to function on a regular basis without paying into trying to pay those loans off. Is really difficult how do we educate our young folks. How do we their families. To protect themselves now and then how do we legislatively. Change these predatory abilities that these long companies have chains of fine print so that is basic years ago for a home they simplify that paperwork it was easy for people to understand do the same thing with student loans that's one go into the communities go to church go to family centers run their programs even through your own union and say hey we're going to be doing this you know come on in a go out to the high schools and for football camp in banking it can cheerleading and all of those things and talk to those kids bring their parents and band booster . Clubs this is something even to have going to have one of my girls dance studio and let parents know hey I know you have some kids are kids going to be going off to college so this is what you need to look into there is a difference between public loans and private loans and all of those kind of pitfalls and trying to get the kids and the parents Amakosa star managing. Them pink in about a map you can have a map on where is that they want to go and backtrack on how they're going to get there and what kind of money is going to be needed out of my own pocket out of my parents' pocket am I going to get a job among going to a part time all of those components in order for those kids to hopefully go to school it would be great if they were freeing it specially to a state school I mean already paying taxes right now and so. That would be a great pain and a lot of people don't know is right now student interest is like 6.256.35. In order for the government to break even on the amount of money that's out there it only needs to be 2 percent. They're made as I said 2 percent and we're charged $6.00 and some even higher if they were in private loans but sure but the public loans to the government they're charging the 6 why Elizabeth Warren was asking the question why is the government making money off a student and then make it killing. And and why is of that money there are a lot of things we can do and a you know I am a former federal employee and I used to believe that you know there are some things that are inherently governmental safety security you know and I throw health in their health care in there too but I'm starting to think that we should be. More like our friends in Germany and then explain in Germany that they've got the state schools there and it's paid for by tax dollars Ok and everybody's working their living their strange taxes and you know you buy stuff you're paying taxes in the schools and they've got some very good state schools but Germany is coming close in that one of the things that's important to them is educating people right so they have free education at the state schools if you go to a private school head you're going to pay something but it's not anywhere near what we're paying here in the United States and it's going to the point where Germany has said look if you're from another country and you want to come to school here to learn to be a productive member of your community. Come on over Wow. You know there are a lot of things we can do we can reduce the amount how much it costs to go to school we can collectively you know come up with ways you know like foreign banks Ok foreign banks lend too far right Ok and that's all they do and they help farmers right why can't we come up with a community bank that does something along the line. And so you know what people in our community you know your kids they want to borrow some money borrowed from you Community School bank right and then go off to school and you pay back at that to 3 percent Ok And we're going to help you do that. We're not going to be family we're not in a mortgage your house and your car and all this kind of stuff and then when you pay it back we're going to little bit extra money so and you do it for somebody else right. It would be too easy and you know the middleman profits Yeah and so I got to I have to continue to live in my White House up in the pillar you know in the sky while we sit down here at the bottom. I think we can probably take our budget was heads together but I've heard some very interesting things one of them is that some of the unions that have fairly substantial. Pension funds could actually set aside some money and say you know what if you're your parents or a member of this Union let's start there. Make sure that all x. Y. Z. Unions kids have the funding available to go to school and they can pay us back wow that would be great I think so yes Randi Weingarten Where is exactly. I think she's. Serving Sandiego from high atop monument peak in the a good amount and this is. Where you can hear talk of the town with Michael Geary Monday through Friday from 8 to 9 am and 4 to 5 pm it's an insightful program about what our country needs to be doing to get back on track it's informative educational and even funny at times that's Talk of the town here on cable and s j Descanso on point one f.m. And streaming live online it. Org. This is sea change radio covering the shift to sustainability I'm Alex. And we realize that getting people. Hooked on a new kind of fuel is really not going to solve the problem long term it's not going to solve the energy poverty issue and it's not going to human. While the Earth probably won't shake the next time you turn on your gas stove top keep in mind it comes at a cost this week on sea change radio we revisit a couple of discussions from our archives 1st we hear from all the carbon geophysicist with the u.s. Geological Survey about the connection between gas exploration and Oklahoma and earthquakes Next we learn about the benefits of cooking with the sun from Julie Green the executive director of solar cookers International. I'm joined now on Seachange radio by my friend ole carven He's a geophysicist at the u.s. Geological Survey in Menlo Park California Oh they welcome to sea change Radio thank you thanks for having me maybe you can tell us what you and your colleagues have been tasked with in trying to find links between what is known as induced seismicity manmade earthquakes from natural gas and fracking here so the u.s.g.s. Is mission is to monitor seismicity do basic science on earthquakes in our case and figure out what is going on in certain look else and in the central u.s. So Texas Oklahoma Kansas for the most part Colorado is part of this too the rate of seismicity or the number of earthquakes has increased significantly since about 2010. Houma now has more earthquakes larger than magnitude 3 than California switch . It's completely out of the norm they used to have 2 or 3 or so and they're on at least this year I think you have about $700.00 North quakes are larger than a $3.00 How does that compare to California California has I think roughly $3.00 to $400.00 or so per year of 3 or larger of course California has a history of much larger earthquakes at the higher end like the 1906 earthquake Loma Prieta in 89 and so on Oklahoma has had the biggest event being a 5.7 and most of those are between 3 and 4 some are larger than 4 still but they don't have the very large events that we see in California is there the potential for these induced seismicity events to be of the magnitude of a 906 earthquake Ali that's a really good question and it's really difficult to answer for one because the historic catalog or the seismic catalog is not well known across Oklahoma or Texas a and basically that is the recurrence of large events is much larger there than if there is such a large of and then it would be in California so making these inferences is difficult but what is sort of the ingredient to large earthquakes is the size of the fault that slips over the area of the fault it slips in an earthquake the amount it slips and and then the rigidity of the rock surrounding it and so in California of course we see very large earthquakes in Japan and Aleutians and so when we see even larger earthquakes because the area of a fault is much bigger in Oklahoma and Texas across the central u.s. It's difficult to say for one because we haven't seen any big ones and we don't really know where the big faults are but about the new Magid earthquake of what $1820.00 something like that it was that was an aberration but that was a fairly large event that paleo geologists can go back in and look at now in a new light perhaps absolutely the new Magid zone has seen very low. Roger Vinson I believe it was the $870.00 s. It was felt all across the central and eastern u.s. Actually but we don't have of course any instrumental records of it so there's some debate on how large it was there certainly is a history there of historic events from the paleo chill logic record. The people of course have known about a seismic hazard in that area so it isn't really so much related to the inducer it's missing the portion that we see across you know Oklahoma Texas and so states so it's not really affected by that and people know the seismic hazard and stay away from that zone so let's dive into the science behind the fracking and natural gas which is causing these fissures to be created and this instability to exist it's interesting you bring up fracking as the cause for much of the seismicity what actually is happening is that it's the waste water disposal some of it is related to fracking but in Oklahoma for example only 10 percent of the way support a disposed comes from fracking So it's not actually the injection of the water it's after the water gets put through these fissures then they need to put it somewhere and it gets reinjected into different chasms in the ground is that right exactly so with fracking actually the volumes of water injected are very small what happens in fracking a long horizontal reach wells are drilled in the hydrocarbon bearing formations those are then fractal meaning certain stages of the well are opened high pressure . Water is pumped in fractures are generated right next to the well and so far the largest event it's associated directly with fracking in the u.s. Or on the order of about 3 in Canada a little bit bigger about a 4 What then happens when you produce water and the water used to make the fractures that water is contaminated with all sorts of stuff. So you have to dispose it somewhere and that disposal of waste water not just the fracking but I'm number of other up oil and gas operations happens much deeper than the actual oil and gas bearing formations and oftentimes that wastewater is injected right above what's called Crystal and basement forms more or less the sort of foundation for example Oklahoma Kansas and so on and above it is the sedimentary pack with formations that contain oil and gas so this injection of waste water and massive amounts of waste water right above this basement is really the culprit to the induced seismicity of consequence where you feel something at the surface damage is seen to structures homes and so on and injuries may happen likely so for I don't think anybody has been killed in one of the u.s. Based into seismic events so far. And the cause of course is if you have a large fault that's close to ready to break in the basement you inject water of water pressure permeates through for one the injection horizons where you dispose of year waste water but then there are faults and fractures that reach into the basement where pollute can be transmitted and more importantly poor pressure can be transmitted and those then can unclamp faults in the basement that are close to failure and caused these earthquakes that are of consequence like the Prager earthquake in Oklahoma Youngstown in Ohio org guy green Bryan Arkansas and what kind of size were those 3 earthquakes a just mention here the Prager earthquake was the most significant one there was a 5.7 So comparable to themself in the upper earthquake we had here in California about a couple years ago the Youngstown Ohio event was a 4 point one and the guy Greenbrier I think was a $4.00 The difference of those is that they happened much shallower. Than most of the events for example in California and that is because you have a pressure perturbation or a change in pressure and you Nuclear the us quake much shallower than you would for example in California so the effects felt at the surface or the somewhat different in that you you get you are closer to the source and you experience significant shaking right above it and this wastewater disposal that you're talking about all is that also the culprit to potential water shed pollution or is that a different part of the process that's a different part of the process the wastewater disposal is usually very deep you know 6 to 1000 feet or so in the case of Oklahoma and it's insulated from the potable water resources shallower by a number of layers of the impermeable So this way sort of spoils of really has very little effect on the quality of drinking or potable water so what can happen although I don't know of any cases is that for example along the well itself the well isn't cemented well so it isn't close to water flow up along the outside of the well and that could potentially harm shallower aquifers So this the seismicity events are being caused by a waste water just pours all issue but a lot of what we've heard about the fears of methane and other chemicals seeping into the watershed and getting into people's water who live in an area where natural gas exploration is taking place those are different processes correct yes so the process of fracking hydrocarbon bearing formations of oil and gas production happens much shallower the water that's coming out of that and other oil and gas operations is injected much deeper much below where that happens and those areas or well insulated and well. Away from potable water aquifers thousands of feet you know up to 56000 feet difference between where you inject the water waste water and where you can extract potable water for use to listen to sea change radio any time any place just subscribe to our free podcast simply follow the link from sea change Radio dot com or search for us in the itunes podcast directory This is Alex wizened Seachange radio I'm speaking to ole carven He's a geophysicist at the u.s. Geological Survey now they are all in gas industry has been fighting environmental groups tooth and nail when it comes to defending the processes that could potentially harm people drinking water has there been similar pushback from the industry when it comes to the wastewater disposal and the link with induced seismicity. That's a really good question most of the folks we deal with for example an oil and gas industry are geophysicist geologists as well and they know the processes very well also the problem we usually have is proving causality and the problem of making an earthquake and all the ingredients that go into it are very complicated and poorly understood and one of the holy grails of your business is to predict them and we got in like a few seconds here and there but you're still behind cattle when it comes to trying to figure out when something's going to occur right. Anybody that usually claims to predict earthquakes and we more or less call it quack and for good reason they have been attempts to do it and actually those were related to injection of wastewater at the Rangeley experiment in Colorado in the sixty's and seventy's However that has never been able to be never was able to be reproduced so protection is really not something that earthquake science or scientists do and in fact we think it's actually counter counterproductive because even if you knew when an earthquake happened at a certain place at a certain time you wouldn't really save people all that much the way they may have the chance to evacuate or not what we focus on is trying to understand how significant shaking and potential damage to structures can be at a certain place and what the chances are of that shaking to take place over an extended periods of times that then allows building codes to be adjusted and buildings to be constructed in a way that they're safe in the event of an earthquake whenever that may happen and so we focus at the u.s.g.s. Mostly on those types of issues because we feel that that actually protects life so much more effectively than predicting an earthquake at a certain time He's a geophysicist at the u.s. Geological Survey all 8 carbon all a. Thanks so much for being my guest on c change radio My pleasure thanks Alex. I'm joined now by the executive director of solar cookers international Julie Greene Julie welcome to sea change radio Thank you Alex 1st what is solar cookers international solar cookers International is a nonprofit and our mission is to help people learn about solar thermal cooking technology it's a green sustainable cooking option that's available all over the world and it helps improve planetary health and human health too so how did solar cookers international Get Started give us a little history of the organization if you can Julie sure solar cookers International has been around for nearly 30 years but the technology has been around for much longer than that it's a proven technology it's not something that was just thought of yesterday there are many people again more than 2600000 solar cookers out there that people are pretty pleased with it's a great way to cook and for women who are looking for alternatives to cooking over smoky fires breathing that in exposing themselves and their children to respiratory disease or burns this is an option that they've been asking for they say we need a different way to cook both for our own health for our children sake and because we're using up all our forests so solar cookers international initially began with a new inexpensive design of solar cooker again for that bottom 1000000000 people of the pyramid and particularly focusing on refugee populations from that time we've grown to work with partners on every continent in $124.00 countries because there's so much demand for solar thermal cooking technology what an exciting time we live in the innovations and the evolutions in this technology have been phenomenal so we don't think of this often in our country but there are billions of people who use much. Less clean ways to cook what you give us a snapshot of what the issue is in these developing countries you have absolutely targeted a really important piece that so many people are still cooking the way that human beings have been cooking for thousands of years and the whole issue really is about energy access in our lifetimes renewable energy for everyone will make the biggest contributions to human health environmentalists conservation and also political peace that's truly not an exaggeration because the demand for energy and our population are increasing and because of this we really need to find sustainable and renewable energy for at this most basic human activity after all enough solar energy reaches the earth in one day to power all human activity for 121 years so this is a huge source of untapped energy and cooking is one of the most basic human activities that requires energy and you mentioned many people who cook with biomass and that's true today nearly 3000000000 people cook with biomass fuels that they find near their homes for example cow dung in India firewood in Kenya crop waste and paper in Nepal these are renewable energy sources but they're being used at a much faster rate than they can be replaced people also cook and pasteurized their water with kerosene also called paraffin and fossil fuels which as we know are both highly polluting and nonrenewable and they also are not helpful in terms of greenhouse gas emissions I imagine absolutely we know too that the black carbon emitted by biomass is contributing to the Albi to effect so this is definitely something very important that's contributing to climate change. And does solar cookers International in your organization are you proponents of certain cooking solutions or are you agnostic beyond the obvious solar aspect of it sure I think what you're really asking is are we an objective source and we absolutely are solar cookers International wants women particularly because women are for the most part the world's cooks we want women to have the best possible solar cooker design that works well for them and cooks the kinds of foods that they want to cook for their families so we are. Sort of the clearinghouse for all different kinds of solar thermal cookers and we definitely support end of a chanson the sector the Gross and this type of technology has been phenomenal solar cookers International has been around for nearly 30 years now and the technologies in that time have really evolved every year they become better faster more efficient cookers so that women everywhere everywhere that the sun shines literally they can cook every day that solar energy is available with her new mobile solar energy so how do people use solar cookers what kind of meals are they preparing etc There are 3 primary things 1st of all the solar cooker has to achieve a temperature that will cook the food that the woman is hoping to cook and the 2nd thing is it needs to consider the size of the the crowd that she's cooking for and the best use of solar cookers means that a woman or a consumer a user has found the solar cooker that cooks for the number of people that she's feeding and it also cooks the type of foods that that she needs to cook that means that if you Well I think I can make the best parallel with some devices that Americans are familiar with for instance if I wanted to slow cook a meat or roast or a stew or soup I would probably use a slow cooker if I wanted to bake bread I would use my other than and if I wanted to heat up some tea or coffee I use my stove top and if I wanted to grill a steak or grill vegetables I'd use my barbecue. Solar cookers also come in that wide variety of devices and many people aren't aware of that the most common in the 1st solar cookers were the slow cooker type panel design which has very consistent but a lower rate. Of temperatures many people aren't aware that there are now insulated box cooker that cook as your oven would cook some of them up to 375 or 400 degrees Fahrenheit so it's a very consistent excluding baking experience and the solar parabolic cookers which have gained in popularity recently those are very similar to a barbecue grill that you would have in your backyard you can also saute on those so food tastes great and it takes about the same amount of time to grill a steak on a solar parabolic cooker as it does for me to grill it on my barbecue 10 minutes aside for a nice extinct so in terms of intermittency are there batteries on the way that might be able to allow solar cookers to function when it when the sun's not shining . Yes there are several different organizations and our manufacturers and research institutions working on the thermal heat storage problem and I believe that a couple of them have prototypes that they're bringing to the market I as early as 2 $1016.00 that means that someone can heat this solar thermal storage unit on a solar cooker and bring it indoors and cook with it at night or during rainy weather so this is been a huge and evasion and a breakthrough that the solar thermal cooking world has been waiting for because of course people need to eat every day regardless of what the weather's doing. Signing . Yesterday. Was the. Sign of. The bright. Sunny warm. Sunny. Thank you for the sun. Thank you for. Your. Sunny. Follow the ship to sustainability with sea change radio on Twitter at twitter dot com slash Seachange radio and on our Facebook page. This is Alex wise and sea change radio I'm speaking to Julie Green She's the executive director of solar cookers international So Julie can you speak towards the Global Alliance for clean cook stoves which Hillary Clinton announced the creation of 5 years ago what does that meant for your industry the Global Alliance for clean cook stoves has stated that their technology neutral and they're focusing on clean cooking solutions Initially the focus was on improved combustion stoves which of course still used biomass and many of these combustion stoves have reduced the amount of biomass fuels that people are using solar cookers were included in that mix and nationally but it's such a different technology much of the clean cookstoves combustion. They're rated by measuring emissions and of course a solar thermal cooker is a no emission cooker so it seems to be outside of the category and one of you explain a little bit more about the effort itself has it kind of little spark so to speak under the investor community and the innovations within solar cooking or not yes and no I think the Global Alliance for clean cook stoves has done a marvelous job of bringing this dilemma the fact that we're burning up so so much biomass it's done a great job of bringing it to the attention of the world stage and they're also working to make sure that cooking is an activity that is not going to put a woman or her family in danger I think there are some disagreements about how best to. To respond to that lately the Global Alliance for clean cook stoves has been promoting clean fuels and they position l.p.g. Which is liquefied petroleum gas as the cleanest fuel for cooking and that's a fossil fuel and therefore it's not a sustainable solution why are they promoting l.p.g. Stoves as the cleanest when when solar stoves exist. I believe that much of the funding for the Global Alliance for clean cook stoves comes directly or indirectly through the shell foundation so when we hear about clean energy often the natural gas industry kind of likes to get a piece of that pie this is maybe an example of that yes because frankly there are still 1000000000 or more people who are at the bottom of the pyramid it's commonly called these are people who live in extreme poverty and right now they're really not part of a market economy a global market economy because they don't have disposable income that's definitely been a target for some businesses they see this as a huge untapped source of potential income for nonprofits like solar cookers International and others who look at global poverty and energy poverty issues we realize that getting people hooked on a new kind of fuel is really not going to solve the problem long term it's not going to solve the energy poverty issue and it's not going to solve the human poverty issue and then some critics Julie think that until we've converted our own cooking methods here in the developed world to cleaner solutions that we should not as the poor to be working with renewable cooking devices would do you say to that in response to that I can say I'm a solar cook there are people all over the world who are solar cooking and fact that's one of the things that solar cookers are nationals does this we're gathering that data we know that now there are you know 2600000 or so solar cookers that are out there and the world that people are experimenting with making better and using every day. The fact that you know we say don't ask people to use things you wouldn't use yourself reality is that humans love new devices and new technologies remember when Michael. Wave of ins were new you know there were some people who thought they were magical or evil or how but ever their interpretation of it was or simply something complicated that they didn't want to learn how to use and now it's simply the way that most people cook and people have them in their kitchens and it's just taken for granted that this is the way we cook and I think solar thermal cooking is actually going to be the way we cook someday it's just going to be inevitable because of the need for us to find a way to use renewable energies for cooking She's executive director of solar cookers international folks can go to solar cookers dot org to find out more Julie Green Julie thanks so much for being my guest on sea change radio Thank you Alex what a pleasure. This way the. Final . You've been listening to sea change radio are interim music is by Sanford Lewis in our outro music is by Alex was additional music by Oliver Nelson Flatt and Scruggs and Bobby have check out our Web site at sea change Radio dot com That's a change of Radio dot com to stream or download the show or subscribe to our podcast visit our archives there to hear from Bill McKibben Van Jones Paul Hawken many others and tune in to see change radio next week as we continue making connections for sustainability for c change radio I'm Alex Cohen. And you love community radio when you're excited about the groundbreaking programming. 89 point one f.m. Is putting on the air and screaming at k. 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