Earth Day, Right Now: From a Blue Dot to Your Kitchen

Earth Day hits differently when you step back and see the planet the way astronauts do: one bright blue dot in a vast universe of nothing.

That perspective makes Earth feel both incredibly resilient and deeply fragile—and it brings up a simple but powerful question:

What can we actually do that matters?

In this solo Earth Day episode, I reflect on that question while holding two truths at once: the heaviness of climate denialism and policy backslides here in the U.S., and the real, measurable progress happening around the world. From the rapid growth of solar energy and wind power to the rise in electric vehicle adoption, there are clear signs that a global shift is underway.

I also share my experience participating in a local Earth Day EV car show—and the most common concern people voiced: charging anxiety. We reframe it for what it really is: a short-lived learning curve that fades quickly as new routines take hold.

From there, we bring the conversation home.

Because one of the most overlooked spaces for climate action is the kitchen.

Kitchen activism is not about perfection. It’s about alignment.

It’s about using everyday practices—meal planning, thoughtful food shopping, better kitchen organization, and simple cooking routines—to reduce food waste, save money, and support a healthier food system.

We also get practical about reducing reliance on fossil fuels at home. If switching to an electric vehicle isn’t possible right now, you can still begin electrifying your kitchen in small, accessible ways:

plug-in induction burners
 toaster ovens
 rice cookers
 slow cookers
 electric griddles

These small shifts add up.

If you're local, I’ll be at the Santa Barbara Earth Day EV event this Sunday—April 26. Come say hello.

IN THIS EPISODE

•  Why Earth Day is a moment for reflection, not perfection 
•  Holding climate grief and climate progress at the same time 
•  What global clean energy trends are telling us 
•  EV charging anxiety—and why it fades quickly 
•  Why the kitchen is one of the most powerful places to take action 
•  Simple ways to reduce food waste and fossil fuel use at home 
•  How small daily actions create collective momentum 

REFLECTION

What is one kitchen or energy shift you are ready to try this week?

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RESOURCES + LINKS

•  Watch the PBS segment on Kitchen Activism 
•  Join the 4-week Kitchen Activist group (closes Sunday) 
•  Preorder The Kitchen Activist 
• Start Meal Planning to Save the Planet and Money! started.
• Sign up for my weekly newsletter. 
• Get a copy of the EAT LESS WATER book.
  
  Reach Florencia Ramirez at info@eatlesswater.com

Transcript

The Blue Dot From Space

Denialism Versus Global Progress

EV Charging Anxiety Gets Reframed

What We Control In Daily Life

Meal Planning And Kitchen Activism

Organize To Cut Food Waste

Electrify The Kitchen In Steps

Accountability Group And Your Feedback

Earth Day Invitation And Closing

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Hi everyone, this is Florencia Ramirez, and welcome back to the Kitchen Activist Podcast. Today is Earth Day, which is for me and I hope for you a really big deal. It's an opportunity for us to really think about if we're in alignment with what's happening with our vision for what we want on the planet. At least that's how I look at it as a really great time for me to reflect and take inventory of where I am and where I want to be, and also celebrate the things that I am doing that are part of the solution to take care of this beautiful earth that we get to call home. It also reminds me of the recent trip that our brave astronauts took for all of us. And I was just reading a piece, a newsletter, the climate newsletter from the New York Times, which if you don't subscribe to that, I recommend. And in the article or in the piece, it talks about astronaut Victor Glover, who was on his way back towards the moon looking at Earth. And so I realized that I hadn't seen it, so I went to go look for it on YouTube. And it was just so beautiful because what he said was the space is mostly nothing, just vast emptiness. And then out the window, there's this one bright blue dot, this oasis, this place where everything we know exists, where we exist. And when you hear that, or when I hear that, it shifts something because when we're inside our daily lives, inside the noise, the politics, the overwhelm, it can feel like everything is unstable. But from that distance, as astronaut Victor Glover reminds us, it becomes very clear. This place, Earth, is rare, it is fragile, and it is worth caring for. And that is what we celebrate today on Earth Day. This beautiful place that we get to call home. And this next little bit of time that you spend with me, I want to give some ideas of what we can do both individually but also collectively, and then acknowledge the places where we can where we need some some help, where we can improve, right? Both individually and at the collective level. If you want better health for you, better health for the planet, because they're connected as you'll listen to both these experiences with Pilad and with Faith, who come from different backgrounds, they live in different places. Pilad has a teenage daughter, and Faith is a single professional. So they're coming from very different experiences, but both of them have had incredible shifts in different ways, different ways, but yet the same, which is improving their own health, saving a bunch of money along the way, and increasing their connection to food and their understanding between food choices and how it impacts our planet. This blue spot. Climate denialism is visible in positions of power in Washington from the top down, and policies are shifting in ways that don't reflect what we know to be true. And it can create this feeling of what's the point, right? These policies are moving us in the wrong direction. And it could feel like, well, why do I even do anything? Because it doesn't matter, but it does absolutely matter, especially right now. And having a recognition, what keeps me going, is that all things move in cycles, and that includes politics. No moment is permanent. This too shall pass. And when you zoom out beyond what's happening here, there's another story unfolding. We have some real global bright spots. There are real signs of progress happening around the world. It's not perfect, it's not fast enough, but it's real. So for the first time, solar energy became the single biggest contributor to new energy supply worldwide. Electric vehicle sales has surpassed 20 million last year. Wind energy installation jumped dramatically. In the European Union, emissions are significantly lower than they were decades ago, even as economies have grown. In China, emissions are beginning to level off. In India, they flatten for the first time in generations outside of crisis. These are not small things, they are early indicators of a shift. So it's no longer a question of if the world transitions to clean energy, but when. So at this EV event, what I love most were the conversations. People were curious about the car, but also just overall around making that transition to a hundred percent EV vehicle. One of the biggest concerns that kept coming up was this anxiety around charging. And I get that. Anything new can feel uncertain at first. That's what I talk about as well with meal planning. Anything new is could feel clunky, these actions that we take. But believe me, this anxiety, it fades quickly because the cars themselves do such a good job of guiding you. They calculate your range, they direct you to charging stations, they help you plan your route. And it's interesting because as I was reflecting upon it, we don't expect to have a gas pump at home. We leave the house all the time without a full tank of gas. And we trust that we'll find a place to fuel along the way. We adjust our behaviors around understanding what our distance is to a fueling station. And it's the same with charging. At first, it feels like something you have to think about, and then it becomes part of how you move through the world. And that's for all, and I'm talking about EVs right now, EV vehicles, but this can be said about all the kitchen activism I talk about. It can be any behavior that we change. This is exactly the same. It feels clunky, and then it becomes a normal part of how you move through the world. I'm really encouraging you that if you've been on the fence, this is a good time, Earth Day, to make that transition to an electric vehicle. Talk to folks who have them. Not just a dealership, but real drivers. I really love how these EV, Earth Day car shows are popping up. It's a fun idea because you can have direct contact with EV drivers who are there like me to answer any of your questions thoughtfully, authentically about my particular vehicle, but also overall the lifestyle of having an EV. Because it truly is, for me, it is a platform for experience. And it has been really wonderful. Moving into an EV vehicle is part of a larger question. And it's how do I reduce my reliance on fossil fuels in my daily life? Because regardless of the noise, regardless of what's being debated, we know the science. We're seeing it. We've experienced more extreme weather, shifting seasons, changes that affect how we live and grow food. So the question becomes: what is within our control? We have so much in our control. Alongside all of this, there's something else that gives me hope. Nature itself. Scientists are finding that rainforests can regenerate in decades. Rivers are being restored and salmon are returning. Wildlife crossing are being built. Land has the capacity to heal. Not everywhere, not all at once, and it is certainly not happening fast enough, but it is enough to remind us that this planet has resilience if we give it the chance and if we support it. Where does that leave us? Most of us are not building global energy systems, and we may not be in that position right now because it's a huge investment to make a transition to an EV vehicle, but we are making decisions every single day. And one of the most powerful places those decisions show up is in our kitchens. This is what kitchen activism is about: not doing everything, but aligning what we care about with what we actually do. And meal planning becomes the entry point because it's where intention meets action. I just recently I'm really excited about this because kitchen activism made its way to PBS that you can watch, where I take you into my kitchen and I gave a few, it's a seven-minute piece, it's not a long segment. They edited it to tell us the story about meal planning specifically, but there are four tenets of kitchen activism that are explained and I guide you through in the kitchen activists book that will be out in November, but it is available for pre-sale. It's meal planning, food shopping, kitchen organization, and then of course the cooking. I give you detailed step-by-step instructions of what you can do to transition your kitchens into a place where we come to cook and store food into powerful vehicles for environmental change. If you haven't seen the piece, I have it in the show notes so you can watch it. I think they did an excellent job. I'm so honored that the producers from PBS felt I had a compelling story to tell and share with folks to think about what they can do at the individual level. Meal planning really is an entry point because it's where intention meets action. Because you start with what you already have. You plan around your real life, not an ideal one. You shop your kitchen first, the farmer's market second, your grocery store third. You begin to think like a food manager, someone who respects the resources that come into your home. If you were to go into a grocery store and everything was disorganized, if pasta was on aisle one and also on aisle six and on aisle ten, it wouldn't make any sense. They wouldn't sell very much and they would also lose a lot of food if everything is disorganized in a grocery store or move pushed to the back so that you couldn't even see everything. You would go to purchase your dairy and all the milk is pushed to the back, and you have things that are up in the front, and you have to like try to find it. But don't sometimes our refrigerators look like that or our cupboards and pantries? That's why we're losing 42% of our food in the home kitchen. So just by organizing, grouping all your things together, that there will make a big impact of how much food we waste in our kitchens. That's a low-hanging fruit, so that gives me a lot of hope. There are simple fixes for it. We just have to think about it and put some energy behind it and have it be part of the discussion like it is for me. And that is my goal with kitchen activism, is that it becomes natural, it just becomes natural, and we are always thinking about shopping your kitchen first. It just becomes a mantra for everyone. It makes so much sense, but sometimes we just need somebody to say it and say it very clearly, and then it becomes our own. If you haven't listened to The Journey with Faith and Bilad, I encourage you to do so because they took these tips and brought them into their kitchen and into their lives and made it their own. Faith describes her mules as feeling sacred now. And Bilad began to see how mules are connected, flowing from one to the next, and that's the shift. Another idea for this Earth Day if you can't make an electric vehicle possible right now because it's a big investment, we can do smaller things to reduce our fossil fuel use, especially in the kitchen. You don't have to replace everything at once. You can start with a plug-in induction burner, which is what I do because I still have a methane gas stove. Natural gas is really methane gas, which is 20 times more potent than carbon emissions, so then CO2s. And that's happening in our kitchens every day. Like it's not a perfect system, right, to use the induction plug-in burner, but just doing it sometimes makes a difference. A toaster oven, which has become my go-to before my oven, rice cookers, slow cookers, electric griddles, those are like small investments that we can slowly move away from fossil fuels or methane gas. These are accessible, they're ways to electrify your kitchen, electrify your your daily round, and these little actions they add up, just like meal planning adds up, just like reducing food waste adds up. This is something I've been thinking about a lot. What tools help people actually do this to move into kitchen activism? What are the things that you need to help you? So the Kitchen Activist book is coming out in November. It's a step-by-step guide to building a planet smart kitchen, but I don't want to wait until then. I've created a small four-week accountability group, a space to meet weekly, to talk through what's working, to support each other, to show up for yourself, just like I did with Bilod and Faith. And in my last conversation with Faith, she was really encouraging me to put something like this together. So I thought about it, about how it could look. So I'm offering it to you. You can find it in the show notes. But I'd also love to hear from you like what would help you bridge the gap? Is it this accountability group, or is there something else that would help you make more connections between what your heart's desire is for a healthier, stronger environment and what you're doing in your home? Or is it maybe to also to create that connective tissue between your desire for your own health? Because we are small little mirrors. We're each little planet. We're mirrors of this larger planet that we get to call home. There's so many examples of how we're the same. Like the fact that we're 70% water when we're born, we are 70% water, just like this planet is 70% water. That is not by accident. Please send me a line. Let me know. Any ideas that you have? Because this is a collective genius, right? I don't have all the ideas for sure. I don't have all the ideas. So I would love to know how I can be of service. What kinds of information do you need? What would help? Is it a small accountability group to meal plan once a week to build that muscle and a new habit? Because they say it takes 30 days to create a new habit. Or is there something else, something else that would be helpful? Earth Day is an invitation, not to do everything, it's an opportunity for me to notice where my values are already aligned with my actions and to celebrate it. And then it also is an invitation to see where is there's space for a shift. Because when those small actions begin to align across households, between mine and yours, across communities, across the globe, it creates momentum, real momentum. We are all living on that same blue dot that astronaut Victor Glover reminds us, that same improbable, extraordinary place. And while the challenges are real, so is the progress, so is the possibility, and so is your role in it. I'll see you next week. Thank you.