Green Tea Podcast

Welcome to Episode II of Season 7, where we sit down with Professor Ashley Shaw, PhD, to discuss eco-anxiety, eco-anger, and other emotions when thinking about sustainability and climate change.

Welcome to Episode III of Season 7, where we sit down with Annie Mahoney '23 and Benny Adler '25 to discuss summer camp, environmentalism, and potential ways to get children interested in saving the environment.

For the fourth episode of the seventh season, Green Tea sits down with Abby Gordy '23. We talk about her independent project in climate journalism and the effect she wishes this project to have on the world.

For the fifth episode of the seventh season, Green Tea sits down with Keisha Payson. We talk about Bowdoin's Climate Action Plan and the steps our college is taking towards becoming free of fossil fuels.

For the sixth episode of the seventh season, Green Tea sits down with Sejal Prachand '24. We talk about Sejal's obsession with birds and how this influences their ideas of sustainability.

Welcome to Green Tea Season 6, Episode 1! In this episode, we introduce Nick Sibiryakov, our new co-host, to our listeners and share our plans for Season 6!

Welcome to Episode II of Season 6, where we sit down with Professor Erik Nelson to talk about institutional approaches to climate change, how to incentivize energy efficiency and other climate-friendly practices, and recent technological change in the energy vehicle industry.

Welcome to Episode III of Season 6, where we sit down with Samira and Lemona to discuss their alternative spring break trip to New York, where they examined the history and evolution of cities, with a focus on environmental racism.

Introducing the Office of Sustainability's newest program manager, Christina Honeycutt! Juliette and Holden sit down with Christina to ask about her path to Bowdoin and her expectations for the year ahead.

Back in the WBOR studio for the first time since 2019, Green Tea sits down with Perrin and Benjamin, who both participated in Round River's Sky Islands program in Spring 2021. We talk about studying off campus in the COVID era, conservation biology in the Arizona Borderlands, and avoiding burnout through work and play.

During a time in the semester where so much at the college seems difficult, Green Tea hosts Holden and Juliette, with honorary host Perrin, take time to check in and chat about some of the ways students on campus can sustain each other. We also welcome Robyn Walker-Spencer '24 into our conversation and discuss the sophomore experience this year.

Kate Nicholson, Associate Director of Student Wellness, drops by the recording studio to talk with Holden and Juliette about the path to her position and her approach to feeling grounded throughout the school year. About the photo shown here, during a Qi Gong workshop on Bradbury Mountain, Kate (center) says, "Having a strong sense of place as well as strong sense of Self are both important practices in grounding - grounding into the present moment, grounding into your body, grounding into what's important to you, etc. These all feel like guideposts to true wellness, and I adore this photo embodying that."

For the last episode of Green Tea season 5, Holden and Perrin sit down with Lisa Beneman, garden manager at the Bowdoin Organic Garden.

New co-host Juliette Min '22 and returning co-host Holden Turner sit down to chat about sustainability, belief, and friendship to kick off Season 4 of Green Tea at Bowdoin College.

Juliette and Holden host a conversation with Joanna Lin '22 about the ways she finds themes of sustainability across neuroscience, medicine, friendship, and pole-vaulting. We also touch on what Joanna and Juliette have learned from a winter break book club through the pre-health society.

This week, Hayden Keene ’22 joins the show to tell us about her work with plant medicine. She tells us about her own path to practicing holistic healing and how plants are our partners in activism. We also touch upon heritage, colonialism, and everyday forms of plant medicine in this episode.

This week, we welcome Shreyas Sreenath to Green Tea. Dr. Sreenath, who is a professor of anthropology here at Bowdoin College, hosted us in his driveway one afternoon for this conversation. We discussed his path in anthropology and the class he now teaches about toxic environments as they relate to critical discussions of humans and political ecologies going on today.

Elisha Osemobor joined Green Tea this week to talk about the intersection of art and sustainability. We also talked about art history and race, and ways that she takes care of herself (hint: through podcasts!). During our conversation she mentioned several pieces of art: Benjamin Von Wong’s Mermaid Swims in Ten Thousand Bottles; Yudi Sulistyo’s Warfare and Out of Control; and Barkley L. Hendricks’ Icon for My Man Superman (Superman Never Saved Any Black People). 

Nailah Khoory '22 joins Green Tea to discuss the Sustainable Development Goals set out by the United Nations. For the Bowdoin Office of Sustainability, Nailah works on finding intersections between the SDGs and the Common Good. Holden and Juliette also talk to Nailah about her leadership roles with Smart Woman Securities and how she wants to better the world of capital investment going forward.

Professor of Ecology Justin Baumann joins us at Green Tea for a conversation about his fieldwork and current classes. We hear about a reading list of sci-fi, fantasy, and science writing that revolves around an eco-feminist perspective. Justin also shares about his favorite species of coral.

Books mentioned in this episode: 

Octavia Butler, The Parable of the Sower

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Word for World is Forest

Paolo Bacigalupi, The Windup Girl

N. K. Jemisin, The Broken Earth Trilogy

Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony

All We Can Save, eds. Dr. Ayana Johnson and Katherine Wilkinson

BONUS Massive Starlet coral, Siderastrea siderea (pictured below)

Professor Stefan Gary, part of Bowdoin's Earth and Oceanographic Science department, joins Green Tea to share his path in oceanography and climate solutions. He tells us about ocean robots, his time in the Peace Corps, and his modeling work with Project Drawdown.

This week Green Tea visits Ken Cardone, Interim Director of Dining Services, in his office in Thorne Hall. During our conversation, we talk about changes in how Bowdoin feeds thousands of people each day and what sustainability means for Dining Services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For our penultimate episode of the season, Green Tea sits down with Emil Cuevas, Associate Director of Facilities Operations and Maintenance, on a windy spring day to talk about his approach to building design and systems thinking at Bowdoin. We touch on Emil's background in engineering and design, and we ask about future infrastructure changes at Bowdoin, including electrifying our heating system to reduce our carbon emissions. (Please excuse any audio variation - masks and wind make this episode quieter than most!)

Enjoy our last episode of season 4 at Earth Day 2021! On the Main Quad, Holden and Juliette asked people two questions: how do you sustain yourself? and what's your favorite place on Earth? Features a musical interlude from Stephen Girard.

We're back! For this first episode of Green Tea's third season, we say farewell to former co-host Diego Velasquez, introduce new co-host Holden Turner '21, and check in on Bowdoin in the COVID era. We hear from current First Years Ayanna Hatton and Talia Mirel about their perspectives on sustainability and environmentalism during their first fall on campus. Holden and Marie wrap up by discussing their plans for the upcoming episodes of Season Three.

(Please excuse any hiccups in the sound quality due to the limitations of recording virtually due to COVID.)

Marie and Holden talk to Kate Holcomb of Canopy Farms about her perspective on sustainable business, local food, and aquaponics systems. Now in the first years of growing produce in a rooftop greenhouse in collaboration with Tao Yuan Restaurant, Canopy Farms offers a model for cooperation, education, and innovation in Maine's food system.

Continuing their dive into Brunswick's small business landscape, Marie and Holden sit down with Toby Tarpinian, owner of Morning Glory Natural Foods. This conversation includes ideas about consumer activism, the evolution of independent grocery stores, and how food systems have reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic. Along the way, Toby shares his family's priority: getting food out into the community. Note: the audio for this interview is quieter than usual, as the conversation was recorded at an outside location and all speakers wore masks.

In this collaborative episode between Bowdoin’s Native American Students Association and Sunrise Bowdoin, we talk with students Amanda Cassano '22, Sunshine Eaton '22, and Leif Maynard '22 about the overlap between Native activism and climate justice in the wake of an event with Rep. Deb Haaland (NM). Our conversation covers issues of meaning and political futures and ends with thoughts about how groups with similar goals can support each other’s work. (Below: Amanda Cassano and Sunshine Eaton; Leif Maynard, not pictured.)

For this first installment of a two-part series on Bowdoin's newest solar energy project, Holden and Marie speak to Shana Stewart Deeds, laboratory instructor in Bowdoin's biology and environmental studies departments. This conversation focuses on the work that Shana has done with her students on siting and managing solar projects, especially in the ecological context of the former Brunswick Naval Air Station. Also, be sure to check out this upcoming CREA event on the role of fire in ecological management, which Shana mentions in this episode. (Photo shows Shana Stewart Deeds)

For the second installment of our two-part series on Bowdoin's newest solar energy project, Holden and Marie talked to several people on the energy consulting and project development side of the matter. First, Matt Gamache '13 at Competitive Energy Services gave us an overview of Bowdoin's newest energy choices and what they mean for the college's climate action goals. Then, we held a group conversation with Jill Rathke '18, Rennie Friedman, and Anna Noucas '11, all of whom work at Sol Systems, the project developer for Bowdoin's solar array at the naval air station. They told us all about the policy context and site considerations for the array. Finally, everyone reflected on their careers in the energy field and what they imagine for the future of solar in Maine. Note: please excuse any variation in sound quality, as this was recorded over several Zoom calls.

Green Tea Season 2 Episode One: Paul Joyce currently a boat captain responsible for coordinating student and faculty research out of the Schiller Coastal Studies Center worked up and down the coast of Maine as marine patrol officer. In this episode, Paul describes the many encounters he had as marine patrol officer and the importance of environmental education at all stages of life. 

In a discussion that extends beyond the usual confines of environmentalism, sustainability and what it means to live a green life, Eduatrdo Pazos Palma, Director of Religious and Spiritual Life at Bowdoin College explains the nexus between the environment and spirituality. Pazos elucidates his own experience and the readings and research he has done within the realm of spirituality and religion to discuss the moral, ethical and philosophical implications of what leading a sustainable life truly means.

As a continuation of last week’s Green Tea episode on the nexus of spirituality and the environment, Diego and Marie speak with Lauren Hickey about her Bowdoin Orient column titled “Spiritousness, Religuarity and the Search for Meaning,” published biweekly in the Bowdoin Orient, online and in print. Lauren shares her own religious background and how she sees the effect of her own history on environmentalism and what sustainability means to her.

Olivia Griset of Maine Environmental Educational Association speaks about the value of teaching the younger generations how to care for their surroundings, environmental policy agendas and the meaning of environmental education to indigenous groups.

Diego and Marie interview Kate Toll '20, about her efforts to make her chemistry lab on campus more sustainably-minded. Why are labs inherently difficult to implement these policies in? What is the ultimate value of science at the cost of the environment? What happens to our waste products when we finish using them? All these questions and more addressed in this week's episode.

Green Tea: Episode One. In our first episode you’ll hear a behind-the-scenes interview: a conversation between the Green Tea show’s two hosts so that you have a clearer idea of where they come from in producing this show, asking the questions they have and choosing the guests that the show has the opportunity to host. Marie and Diego ask each other about their respective histories within the realm of sustainability, what that word evokes for each, and what the two are looking forward to seeing at Bowdoin and beyond. Green Tea will explore a lot of the themes addressed within this show in more depth in future episodes.

Green Tea: Episode Two. Marie and Diego have the privilege of speaking with the Outreach Coordinator of the Bowdoin Sustainability Office, Bethany Taylor who has been at the college since 2016. Bethany does the almost impossible job of coordinating sustainable initiatives and events on Bowdoin’s campus through an army of student workers. This is a job she is incredibly excited to share more about. Look forward to this uplifting conversation about the future of sustainability at Bowdoin and beyond!

Green Tea: Episode Three. In Green Tea’s third episode, Diego introduces Marie’s interview with Ayana Harscoet, class of 2021, about her sustainability work on campus. The two discuss sustainability from the lens of ecology, science as an institution and productivity of structures based on western science. Ayana also describes what activism means to her in the environmental realm.

Green Tea: Episode Four. Diego and Marie speak with the Director of Sustainability at Bowdoin College, Keisha Payson, about on-campus environmental and sustainable initiatives. Though sustainability at Bowdoin did not begin with the office, the office began with Keisha’s hiring and she has been at the heart of many of Bowdoin’s sustainability efforts since then. Get a sneak peak into the process behind Bowdoin’s sustainable plans for the futuree!

Green Tea: Episode Five. Climate strike, activism, how to affect meaningful change: all this and more addressed in Green Tea’s fifth episode with Bowdoin Professor Laura Henry. Diego and Marie ask about the September climate strike and the long-term efficacy of the Sunrise Movement, an international climate movement, from Laura Henry’s expert position of an extensive history in social movement theory and research.

Green Tea: Episode Six: What makes a birder? Why birds? And what do they mean? James and Brendan, avid birders themselves, discuss the importance of birding, keeping track of taxonomy, making lists and the environmental significance of such an activity. Brendan and James have over 1000 species between the two of them. Stick around to get some non-birding advice from these campus expert birders!

Green Tea: Episode Seven. “I think stories create the world.” Self-described "hippie weirdo" Gary Lawless, poet, book publisher and owner of Gulf of Maine Books, gives two readings of his own work in an interview held in the bookstore after closing hours. Gary talks about his own history of nature writing, the role education and reading serves in inspiring activism, as well as the importance of local bookstores. You’ll hear the voices of Green Teas’s hosts much more in this episode, giving structure to the interview.

Green Tea: Episode Eight. Colby Santana is leader, rapper, singer, producer extraordinaire of eco-band sensation The Sustainers! Diego and Marie chat with Colby about his music and the power of lyrics in accessing different demographics about the effects of climate change and living sustainability. In the final episode of Season 1, listen in to two of Colby’s eco-tunes which you can find on Soundcloud and Spotify. Also, keep up with the band on Instagram.