The Mike Nowak Show Podcasts

Patrick O’Neill, CEO of Amp Your Good, discusses the Give Healthy Movement, which hopes to change the way Americans donate food. Kim Hankins, director of the Sustainability Center at McHenry County College, previews their 10th Anniversary Green Living Expo. Margaret Frisbie, Executive Director of Friends of the Chicago River, reports on a mysterious oil slick in the Chicago River. Bill Whitney owner of City Bee Savers, explains how he is looking for what he calls Survivor Queens.

Mike Nowak and Peggy Malecki wax poetic on a potpourri of subjects, including a mysterious oil spill in the Chicago River, a 10 million dollar prize to be awarded to the team that can come up with a solution for phosphorus pollution in our fresh waterways, and the threat of oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean (again!) Meteorologist Rick DiMaio makes a special studio visit to look back at the weird October weather.

Lisa Hilgenberg, manager of the Regenstein Fruit and Vegetable Garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden, has advice for fall gardening, including bulb planting. Molly Flanagan is vice president of policy for Alliance for the Great Lakes, and Tony Maas is manager of strategies for Freshwater Future and the Director of the Forum for Leadership on Water (FLOW Canada). They report on their organizations' battle against algae blooms in Lake Erie.

Jody Osmund, who, with his family runs Cedar Valley Sustainable Farm, talks about his experiences raising livestock sustainably and humanely, and his work as part of the worldwide Slow Food Movement.

Nicole Virgil talks about her family's fight with suburban Elmhurst to keep a hoop house in their yard under which they can grow vegetables. Then Ron Cress reports on his own battle to grow native plants in his DeKalb, Illinois yard. Michele Hoffman returns to the Science Desk to explain about a pioneering technique called microfragmenting that can rapidly grow corals and perhaps help populations rebound in certain parts of the world.

Paul Coffey is Vice Provost & Dean of Community Engagement at the e School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). and Jeff Levrant is co-founder of Homan Grown, a wholesale perennial & tree nursery. They discuss a project called Oaks of North Lawndale, which will see the planting of 7,000 and accompanying art in that Chicago neighborhood.

Benjamin Vogt is a native plant landscaper and author of a new book, A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future, He and Jeff Swano from DigRightIn Landscaping preview the Impact Conference: Building Sustainable Landscapes, presented by the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association. Principal Augustine "Augie" Emuwa of Chicago's Gale Community Academy is joined by Tonia Andreina and Executive Director Rev. Marilyn Pagán-Banks  from A Just Harvest about using urban agriculture to create economic opportunity in the city.

Carol Yetken from CYLA Design Associates Inc talks about the challenges of being the landscaper for the d The Baha'i House of Worship for North America in Wilmette, Illinois. Founder and owner of Nature’s Perspective Landscaping Tom Klitzkie has advice for watering plants as we head into fall and winter.

Artist Sharon Bladholm talks about her exhibit at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Soils, Seeds, and Sprouts: Tropical and Temperate. Mike and Peggy congratulate two giant pumpkin growers on their mammoth achievements. Erik Carlberg and Doug Snower from WindFree Solar report on opportunities for clean energy in Illlinois under a new law.

Mike and Peggy take the show to the DuPage County Fairgrounds for the SCARCE Green Fair, where they talk to SCARCE founder Kay McKeen, staff members and several of the exhibitors at this celebration of how to reduce, reuse and recycle.

In the wake of the Hurricane Harvey rain event in Texas, environmental scientist David J. Zaber discusses the value of spraying to control mosquito populations. Kay McKeen from SCARCE previews their Green Fair, from which The Mike Nowak Show will be broadcasting next week. Michele Hoffman is at the Science Desk, and she brings Mike Mikulka, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 704, which represents more than 900 EPA employees in the Chicago regional office and across the Midwest, who talks about the fate of that agency.  

Dr. Murphy Westwood, director of Global tree conservation at the Morton Arboretum, and Dr. Rex Bastian from the Davey Tree Expert Company, discuss the decline and possible extinction of several ash tree species, as well as threats to various types of oaks.

Author and herbalist Lisa M. Rose talks about her new book, Midwest Medicinal Plants: Identify, Harvest, and Use 109 Wild Herbs for Health and Wellness, and how you can use it to create your own backyard medicines. Doug Taron, Chief Curator of the Chicago Academy of Sciences at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago, reports on late summer monarch butterfly spottings in the Midwest.

Juanita Irizarry is executive director of Chicago’s Friends of the Parks. She reports on the ongoing struggle to bring transparency to the plans for the proposed Barack Obama Presidential Library on Chicago's south side.

BK Sharma from the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) explains how pyrolysis can transform plastics back into petroleum. Stephen M. Bantillo, executive vice president for the National Recycling Coalition, and William Turley, founder and executive director of the Construction & Demolition Recycling Association (CDRA), explore solutions for properly disposing of toxic debris after catastrophic natural events.