Environmentally Speaking

It's the final Episode!We speak to Gender Specialist, Kristina Neil and Dr. Dalea Bean, Head of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, Mona Campus Unit on the connected topics of Gender & Climate.For successful climate adaptation and a just transition, we have to include gender from the planning stage. We can't have success without it- when success looks so different for everyone. We touch on intersectionality and the ever present need for Climate Justice.This may be the end of the podcast season, but not the end of the election season. We have a lot of work to do to see climate more present on the ballot.Follow here the work of the 34 environmental organisations that took leaders to task to emphasize climate issues on the campaign trail.Keep the conversation going - open dialogues within your own communities - Let's keep Climate on the Ballot!

Everyone complains about the traffic. But it's not as simple of an issue as it may seem. It goes to the heart of how we plan our cities, what we prioritize and how we zone- residential vs. commercial, concrete vs. agricultural. When we think about climate change, specific to these cities, it's clear we need to make changes as well.What do we want our cities to look like? How do we want to travel?We talk to Dorraine Duncan founder of Island City Lab and Monique Lewis, Urban and Regional Planner at the Planning Institute of Jamaica about the intricacies of city planning at the macro and community level. 

Climate Change is not just an environmental issue, it's a public health issue that affects us all. Whether it's airborne/waterborne diseases, industrial contamination, or even access to healthcare during natural disasters, we cannot separate our own well being from the health of our environment.This episode we discuss Health and Environment with Linnees Green-Baker, Public Health Inspector and Climate Change Fellow, as well as Edward Cunningham Environmental Health Engineer and member of the JCCYC. Join the conversation!You can still write in your questions & comments to [email protected] with the subject line: 'Climate on the Ballot' or WhatsApp us at: +1 (876) 545-2044Your voice and your vote counts!  

If there is one thing we all have in common it's waste. We use it, try to lose it, but we have to find a way to deal with it. With no sanitary landfills in the country, waste management in Jamaica becomes a huge issue for our homes and communities, even affecting livelihoods and worsening disasters. We talk to Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie, CEO of Jamaica Environment Trust and Senator Sophia Frazer-Binns, Opposition Spokesperson on Environment and Ecological Heritage about the impacts of these systems and our hopes for the future of waste management in Jamaica, beyond this election season.Want to participate in the discussions? Write in your questions & comments to [email protected] with the subject line: 'Climate on the Ballot' or WhatsApp us at: +1 (876) 545-2044Your voice and your vote counts! 

With the memory of Hurricane Beryl fresh in our minds and as we are heading into another hurricane season, we can't forget Disaster Readiness & Recovery on the campaign trail.  We have to talk about the support and infrastructure we need to create resilience towards these natural hazards that could prevent disaster.This episode we are joined by Kristinia Doughorty, Disaster Risk Reduction & Climate Change Adaptation specialist and Dainalyn Swaby Development Communication Specialist & creator of the Global Yaadie Podcast. We talk about what community resilience looks like, in the face of these disasters.Want to participate? write in your questions & comments to [email protected] with the subject line: 'Climate on the Ballot' or WhatsApp us at: +1 (876) 545-2044Your voice and your vote counts! 

We're Live!Last episode we talked with our expert guests about Jobs- specifically green jobs and the just transition.Our breakdown show where your voice can be heard.Climate on the Ballot is about getting the citizen voice out and the votes in!It's time we see the issues we care about most represented on the ballot.Tun in by joining the live show (Zoom Link can be found in each episode description) you can also stream the live show every other Saturday over on our Youtube channel: Ourfootprintja.Don't forget to leave a review and to write in your questions and comments at: [email protected] with the subject line: 'Climate on the Ballot' or WhatsApp us at: +1 (876) 545-2044

One topic that can turn the tides in an election season: the grocery bill.The cost of food cuts to the very essence of our humanity: can people afford to eat? and to eat healthy? Right now, not so much.With the Caribbean being one of the most food insecure regions in the world where it is the most expensive to access healthy foods. The grocery bill is a topic that we couldn't afford to miss for Climate on the Ballot.We are joined with Hugh Johnson, President of the Bernard Lodge Farmer’s Group and J'quan Morrison, student of the College of Agriculture, Science and Education and member of the JCCYC to discuss these issues around food insecurity, land tenure and support for farmers and our massive import bill.Tune in for a vital discussion and Join in on our live session (via Zoom) Saturday May 10, 2025 at 11:30 am Ja time to weigh in, or stream Live on Youtube: OurfootprintjaCan't make it? No worries. Write in your questions & comments to [email protected] with the subject line: 'Climate on the Ballot' or WhatsApp us at: +1 (876) 545-2044Your voice and your vote counts!

On Today's ballot: jobs. The climate is changing, and so is the work world. We are joined by Marissa Sheppard,  Just Transition Officer at the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Sean Yates, Entrepreneur and Animal Science Instructor at the College of Agriculture, Science and Education (CASE), to explore what's missing from the conversation around the job market this election season.It's not just the quantity but the quality of jobs that we want to see represented - ones that reflect the climate we are in now and give us active mechanisms to sustain our lives and livelihoods.Want more? Join in on our live session (via Zoom) next Saturday April 19, 2025 at 11:30 am Ja time to weigh in, or stream Live on Youtube: OurfootprintjaCan't make it? No worries. Write in your questions & comments to [email protected] with the subject line: 'Climate on the Ballot'

We're Live!Last week we talked about education with our expert guests. This week is our breakdown show where your voice can be heard.Climate on the Ballot is about getting the citizen voice out and the votes in!It's time we see the issues we care about most represented on the ballot.You can stream our live shows every other Saturday over on our Youtube channel: Ourfootprintja 

We're back!Season 4 is ‘Climate on the Ballot’. This election season we want to see the issues that affect us most at the forefront of the discussion.That means more meaningful dialogue on climate change through the lens of our everyday struggles and concerns.Episode 1 focusses on education. How does climate change affect the classroom? and how do we create a better future for our students through climate education?We talk to Dr. Sharon Bramwell-Lalor, UWI Lecturer training generations of teachers, and repeat guest Jhada Haughten, science teacher and member of the JCCYC about the realities of the classroom within the context of climate change.

It's just us in the studio! For this, our final episode of Season 3, we take the time to have a frank discussion with each other about climate justice and what it means to us and the marginalized groups of which we form part. We get more personal and local on ‘Justice in Climate: Equity at the intersections of ‘Being’ in the Caribbean’ tying the bow on Temperature Check, a season devoted to the lived experiences of the impacts of the climate as it is now. Tune in next season of Environmentally Speaking!

Sustainability is a hot topic, but it's more than just a buzzword.  It's an absolute necessity for human survival and continuity. We dive into the real crux of what it takes to secure our collective futures.  We speak to guest, Eleanor Terrelonge, our founder and director of the JCCYC on the intricacies of sustainability and the fabric of society.  What are the drivers and setbacks of sustainability in Jamaica and the Caribbean? How do the decisions from COP29 affect small islands, and how do we respond in the current political climate? Find out this and more on this Episode: Sizzling sustainability

How do you see your relationship with energy? What costs are we willing to pay to ensure everyone has access to this life force?For years we have been talking about renewable energy and a just transition to address the climate crisis. But what does it take to get there, what considerations haven’t we yet made? AS COP29 negotiations are going on we thought a conversation about possibilities for our energy sector would be important. On this episode, our guest, Geasean Johnson, former Research, Policy Development, and Advocacy Co-lead joins us for a talk that takes us across the different contexts of the macro and micro scales of energy and life, the social and political imperatives behind energy production, distribution, and consumption. The structures that control power, control the potentials for decarbonization, decentralization, and democratization of our energy sector. This is Power Play.

Water is life, so its scarcity is life-altering. What makes the Caribbean so susceptible to water scarcity? How does it impact our communities? How do water-filled countries in a region surrounded by water struggle to maintain the source of our being; our relationship with water. In this episode, we talk to Environmental Chemist Rashidah Khan, and Activist Jamila Falak about the various aspects of water security. From the technical to the social and community impacts to the creative, spiritual, and Indigenous relationships, we capture the fullness of the importance of understanding why having water everywhere and nowhere all at once is so scary.

Temperature check? Too hot for corals…Episode two of temperature check dives into the ocean where warming waters are killing our corals. After a mass extinction event, coral restoration efforts in Jamaica came to a screeching halt despite the work of environmental experts trying their best to find and preserve survivors. Felix Charnley joins us from Ocho Rios Jamaica where he works to preserve marine ecosystems and Danielle Nembhard joins us from Australia where she is conducting PhD research on Indigenous inclusion in conservation efforts within the Great Barrier Reef (which is the size of Italy). Dive in with us for this vital episode of temperature check where you will learn that ‘when corals die, we know why’.

We’re back! Season 3 of the Environment Speaking podcast, Temperature Check, focuses on our new climate reality. In this episode, we are joined by returning guest Dr. Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie, and climate justice activist  Luciano Doest from Suriname to discuss life in a new climate. We discuss a wider regional perspective on the climate impacts we are already facing, what is yet to come, and the changes we will have to make to cope and adapt this life in a new climate. 

Transparency and turbidity are two sides of the same coin. They are important to understand if we are to see the true impact of our environmental decisions. Whether we are looking at government processes or at the impact on deep-sea ecosystems, transparency matters. Today, the Clarion Clipperton Zone - some of the clearest waters in the world is now under threat from deep-sea mining.In this, our Season 2 finale of Environmentally Speaking, we explore the concept of government transparency and the importance of understanding ocean turbidity.  Join us as we discuss these critical issues with the CEO of the Jamaica Environment Trust, Dr. Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie, and Paige Samuels - politics and history researcher and host of Checkmate, the political podcast.

There’s a lot more to deep-sea mining than just the pure facts. It’s more than just minerals and the effects can be far beyond any financial or biophysical loss or gains. In this week’s episode, we talk with Danielle Nembhard and Esther Figueroa about the livelihood and the more-than-human impacts of deep-sea mining. By critically exploring different notions on how society is organized around consumerism and our relationships with the environment, we dissected issues on worldview, cultures, political economy, and knowledge systems. This is a mind-bending conversation you don’t want to miss!

In this week's episode, we dove deep into the barriers to environmental journalism. With our guest from the GlobalYaadie Podcast, Dainalyn Swaby, we explored obstacles to covering climate change and environmental issues in mainstream media, dissecting the industry that we rely on for our news and information, in the hopes of holding them to a higher standard of accountability. This is particularly critical within the context of Deep Sea Mining- an issue that many, still, are unaware of. One that has come into the spotlight after what feels like a long period of operation in the shadows. What is the media's role in these conversations? Is there a duty to inform or a commitment to the bottom line? How far does environmental journalism go?

"On this episode of Diving Deep, we spoke with EcoVybz Podcast creator and the Caribbean representative for the Sustainable Ocean Alliance, Khadija Stewart about the risks we face as small island developing states supporting big global north corporations to undertake deep-sea mining. In addition to the potential widespread environmental impacts including, biodiversity loss, carbon-sink disruption, and loss of fisheries, Khadija shared a report from The Metals Company which suggests that the economic benefits may not be that great. Many sources agree, saying that these contracts, like many before, are predatory on small and volatile economies like ours in the Caribbean. So the question is, should we be cautious? What does a precautionary approach look like for us? Is deep-sea mining really worth it?"

The ocean is approximately 12,100 feet (3,688 meters) deep and we have only explored about 5% of it. That means the majority of our ocean HAS NOT BEEN EXPLORED. This season on Environmentally Speaking, we are diving deep into the ocean and discussing the topic of deep-sea mining, which is set to start as early as July 2023. But there are still a lot of unknowns related to the ocean's ecological systems. Join us, as we kick off season two of Environmentally Speaking, learning more about the deep sea and what we don't know about the ocean.

Over the past few months, we’ve looked at how COVID-19 has affected various sectors, so in our final session we’ll be reviewing some of the most salient points, suggestions, tying them together, and wrapping them up. We want to figure out how we can craft our advocacy to address some of the issues highlighted and implement some of these solutions. We don’t want this initiative to end with us just having discussions and that’s the end of it. Our goal is to create a strategic plan about how we as young people can lobby our policymakers and private sector partners to create the radical change that we need to move Jamaica forward in a post COVID world.

There is no society without people. According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “The COVID-19 outbreak affects all segments of the population and is particularly detrimental to members of those social groups in the most vulnerable situations, [it] continues to affect populations, including people living in poverty situations, older persons, persons with disabilities, youth, and indigenous peoples. Early evidence indicates that the health and economic impacts of the virus are being borne disproportionately by poor people. For example, homeless people, because they may be unable to safely shelter in place, are highly exposed to the dangers of the virus. People without access to running water, refugees, migrants, or displaced persons also stand to suffer disproportionately both from the pandemic and its aftermath – whether due to limited movement, fewer employment opportunities, increased xenophobia, etc.If not properly addressed through policy the social crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic may also increase inequality, exclusion, discrimination, and global unemployment in the medium and long term.’

Goal 1 of Jamaica's Vision 2030 development plan speaks to Jamaicans being empowered to achieve their fullest potential. Under this goal, one of the national outcomes is listed as “World-Class Education and Training” and that “Vision 2030 Jamaica recognizes the need for every Jamaican child to have access to education to the level that enables him/her to access further education, training and/or decent work.” These can be logically assumed to fit in with strategic objective #2 of the current education framework which says “Secure teaching and learning opportunities that will optimize access, equity and relevance throughout the education system.”Even with this, hundreds of thousands of students remain without proper access to basic amenities that would have been necessary to ensure this equity even if COVID-19 didn't happen. What do we need to do to ensure access is sustainable should we have another disaster that will force us to do most of our business from home.

Governments need to focus on the general welfare of citizens and make investments in areas that unlock human potential, such as mental health services, reducing child poverty and homelessness, promoting Indigenous rights, fighting climate change, and expanding opportunities. "Economic growth accompanied by worsening social outcomes is not success," Ardern (New Zealand Prime Minister said. "It is a failure."This episode of #CovidChat looks at the economic realities of Caribbean nations in the wake of Covid-19. It Assess the potential for significant growth as we look to reopen economies and how we can incorporate stronger frameworks for sustainability in doing business to ensure access to opportunities of all citizens.

We know that Covid-19 has restricted movement globally and even with some countries opening borders, travel, and movement are not what they used to be. Agriculture, globally, has taken a massive hit due to these actions that served to protect public health.We mentioned the last episode that there is an excess of produce at source due to the closure of massive hotels, restaurants, and other places of entertainment, in addition to the reduced opening hours of marketplaces and the lockdown of major populated areas. This, again, is highlighting a major deficiency in global food security frameworks. In this episode, we want to explore some of the gaps in the local food security framework and how we can fill them to ensure we do not have a repeat of this after Covid-19.

A look at how climate change and the environment impacts food security. In this episode, we assessed the frameworks existing in Jamaica to address these impacts considering our lived experience through COVID-19. The different perspectives and on the different dimensions of food security of the FAO food security definition were explored. 

Launched on World Environment Day (June 5, 2020), under the theme 'TIME FOR NATURE', this episode explored the very close link between climate change, environmental health, and the spread of diseases.The COVID-19 Stay-At-Home orders drastically reduced transportation, both air travel and on the ground, and also reduced economic activities such as manufacturing, fishing. A study published in May 2020 found that the daily global carbon emissions during the lockdown measures in early April fell by 17% and could lead to an annual carbon emissions decline of up to 7%, which would be the biggest drop since World War II according to the researcher.in addition to anecdotal evidence of more fish in some waterways as people stayed at home due to lockdown and travel restrictions, some animals have been spotted in areas that were once their natural habitat. Sea turtles were spotted laying eggs on beaches they once avoided (such as the coast of the Bay of Bengal), due to the lowered levels of human interference and light pollution.How do we use these observations to plan for life after Covid-19 considering the importance of safeguarding environmental health while addressing climate change impacts?

The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in major and for some countries, unprecedented changes. Our collective will as a society as well as various infrastructures has been put to the test. We have had many businesses having to close their doors because of significant decreases in revenue. This has also resulted in job losses with varying levels of impact on those affected. These are just a few of the impacts we are experiencing due to the positive feedback loop created by our response to the pandemic.Listen to climate change advocates Eleanor Terrelonge and Emme Kristi chat with an environmental scientist, Danielle Nembhard, and environmental advocate and Chevening Scholar Dainalyn Swaby about how the world has changed since Covid-19 and what are some of the major impacts that need to be addressed as lessons learned.