In this week’s feature, Carrie Albright interviews Jolie Perry, the sustainability coordinator with the city of Bloomington where they talk about the SEEL program in town that provides grant funding and assistance to nonprofits and businesses to install solar panels to improve building efficiency.
We’ve had some serious storms in southern Indiana this spring, and you may have noticed that it’s bigger and more destructive than previous years. Climate researchers now have evidence that golf-ball-size hail and larger will become much more common in the United States. According to climate researchers at Northern Illinois University, a warmer atmosphere creates more powerful thunderstorms which are then capable of producing larger hailstones.
The research shows this trend will intensify as global temperatures continue rising. For those of us who are not hail scientists, hail forms when rising air in thunderstorms lifts water droplets into freezing air high in the atmosphere. The stronger the storm’s updraft, the more ice accumulates around each droplet before gravity finally pulls it down to earth.
More atmospheric energy from warming means more powerful updrafts and bigger hailstones. While this phenomenon is fascinating, maybe even fun—it also has some very real dangers. Larger hail can cause more damage to private property, like vehicles, roofs, and outdoor structures. Massive hailstones are just one of the many symptoms of how our planet continues to change.
The tornado that moved northwards in Monroe County recently, close to Martinsville, Indiana, has been a significant damage tornado, taking trees along the corridor of I-69 and felling many, with shards of their trunks still standing. High winds and heavy rain began late Wednesday night on June 17th, with winds reported at up to 40 to 45 miles per hour speeds by the National Weather Service, causing severe damage to the trees along I-69, as well as power lines and vehicles, and closing roads.
The tornado became a significant debris tornado close to 10 pm on Wednesday night last week, with most of the damage in Mount Pleasant, Indiana, as fallen trees blocked roads and cellular service was limited. Emergency workers found some people with injuries in Mount Pleasant, and as power lines and trees had fallen, blocking in residents, workers had to access residents on foot, however, due to the damage, some areas were impassable as of yesterday’s reports.
On Brighton Road, there was a fire, although no one was reported as severely hurt. The extent of the tornado damage is not yet known, The Bloomingtonian reports. In some areas, workers have reported trees being down for nearly 100 to 200 yards. I-69 was closed along mile marker 130 due to fallen trees.
In the Netherlands, a mobile cart is trading mini pancakes for something most people throw away—cigarette butts. Okay, yes, it sounds odd, but it’s working to clean up streets while educating communities about waste. WasteBar is a project that exchanges litter—specifically cigarette butts and aluminum cans—for food and drinks.
Bring a handful of discarded butts to the cart, and you’ll walk away with poffertjes (Dutch mini pancakes). For those of us shocked by this business decision, it turns out that the Netherlands discards between five and ten billion cigarette butts annually. Each filter is made of a plastic that takes up to a decade to break down while leaching nicotine and heavy metals into soil and waterways.
When customers bring their cigarette butts to exchange, the WasteBar team doesn’t just offer a pancake, they explain why this type of litter is so damaging and even walk you through waste reduction practices. Partnering with artist Angelina Kumar and the organization UPPACT, WasteBar is targeting one million collected butts in 2026 to transform into a recycled bench or garden set.
By making litter cleanup feel rewarding rather than thankless, this project shows how behavior can shift when organizations take on creative solutions and engage their community.
There are lots of ways to approach environmentally conscious behavior change and Amsterdam just took on a new one: They’ve become the first city in the world to ban public advertising for both meat and fossil fuels. Since May 1st, Amsterdam’s outdoor advertising space no longer promotes meat products or fossil fuel-related travel and transportation.
The city is framing this as part of its climate strategy, with targets to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and halve meat consumption by the same date. This move intentionally targets consumer choices that are directly responsible for massive greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and water depletion.
Banning ads for meat products is focused on the meat industry, not local, sustainable farming businesses. Many small-scale and regenerative farms operate with environmental footprints that look completely different from factory farming. The intention behind this ban is to prevent corporations from normalizing consumption of industrially-produced, high-impact products.
Other Dutch cities have followed with similar restrictions. By removing these ads from public spaces, Amsterdam is shifting what communities consider the default option. The goal is making people think twice about industrial meat and fuel consumption.
Do you get frustrated by how much plastic you end up with after a trip to the supermarket? You can participate in a supermarket audit so we can collectively demand change. Supermarkets are key to less plastic. Supermarkets can influence how brands package their products, and how much plastic consumers end up being exposed to when shopping for everyday products.
They are key players in the plastic pollution lifecycle. Supermarkets have a huge opportunity to help reduce plastic pollution but currently they have largely avoided responsibility for their role in the crises. There’s a lack of information on supermarket business practices around the world, and without information, we can’t demand they do better.
By surveying how supermarkets are either increasing plastic pollution or helping reduce it, we can see what best practices exist, and what practices need to become things of the past. By auditing stores around the world we can see which companies are leading the way and pressure others to follow their example.
If you are interested in participating in a questionnaire, you can go to #breakfreefromplastic to conduct a supermarket audit.
In this week’s feature, Carrie Albright interviewed Jolie Perry, the sustainability coordinator with the city of Bloomington where they talk about the SEEL program in town that provides grant funding and assistance to nonprofits and businesses to install solar panels to improve building efficiency.
Credits:On Air
Julianna Dailey
Cynthia Roberts
Headlines
Stephanie Stewart
Cynthia Roberts
Carrie Albright
Feature Report
Carrie Albright
Ashton Harper
Script & Events Calendar
Julianna Dailey
Engineer
Branden Blewett
Are you looking for a way to make a difference on environmental issues? Eco Report is looking for reporters, engineers, and segment producer to report facts on how we’re all affected by global climate disruption and the ongoing assaults on our air, land and water. We also celebrate ecologists, tree huggers, soil builders and other champions who actively protect and restore our natural world, particularly those who are active in south central Indiana. All levels of experience and all ages are welcome, and we provide the training you’ll need. WFHB also offers internships.
To volunteer for Eco Report, call at (812) 323-1200, or e-mail earth@wfhb.org.