Audio
[audio:http://archive.org/download/hotinhere/itshotinhere19jan2009.mp3]

A special Martin Luther King day and pre-inauguration show… We started live with both our It’s Hot In Here co-host Gina Gettum as well as our Washington correspondent Kerry Duggan on the line from Washington DC. They joined us from a League of Conservation Voters sponsored National Day of Service event at John Phillips Sousa junior high school in DC where solar photovoltaics were being installed on the roof among other things. Future Energy Secretary Steven Chu was even onsite and our intrepid remote reporters were going to try and talk with him offline and report back on future shows. Gina and Kerry told us additionally of the pre-inaugural festivities they’ve already attended on Sunday as well as all the energy surrounding the main event tomorrow where apparently over 4 million people are expected to flood into DC.

Our other remote correspondent Hugh was going to provide a perspective from Canada regarding the US changing of the guard, but was unable to join us, so we’ll check in with him at a future date.

We talked next with Lara Peterson who normally hails from inside the beltway where she serves as the Coordinator for the Russia, Europe and Near Asia Program within the International Programs of the United States Forest Service. She gave us some perspective from inside a federal agency during a transition from one administration to another, and told us all about the USFS International Programs.

Finally, switching gears, we spent the last 15 minutes talking trash with Tiffany Threadgould from Brooklyn, New York. Tiffany told us all about the history and motivation behind her business RePlayGround: “where discarded materials take on new life!” With way more energy than your average person would have discussing garbage, Tiffany told us all about her mission to re-brand garbage, giving examples of her products and designs – including a refocus room divider that she described made out of 1000 used film canisters. Her website RePlayGround.com also details various do-it-yourself (DIY) projects and how RePlayGround likes to support other organizations that share similar beliefs. You can get a sense of those core values by reading the RePlayGround Blog and the FAQ page… who doesn’t love FAQs… my favorite part from the FAQ page:

Q: What will you do when there’s no more waste in the world? Like when we reduce our waste to 0%?
A: We’ll be very happy people when that happens. Perhaps we’ll catch up on movies on a low-energy flat screen LCD. Or we’ll ride our bikes more. Cook more with locally raised food. Drink more organic wine. In the meantime, there’s a lot of scrap out there for us to tackle.

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Enjoy the Music Playlist for 19 Jan 2009, with a couple of extra songs we didn’t get to of course.