House on Fire House On Fire Podcast

Marisol Gomez Melzi, leads Sustainability Programs at Watsco, a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Miami and the largest distributor of air conditioning, heating and refrigeration equipment in the HVAC distribution industry. Marisol started and built her career in the Green Financing and Tech Startup ecosystems in Miami, and she has also worked in the non-profit sector. On this episode, we will highlight some of the innovations Watcso, the largest distributor of air conditioning, heating and refrigeration equipment, is championing in the HVAC industry. We’ll also discuss how Miami can work toward ensuring low carbon, high efficiency HVAC units are part of our city’s infrastructure as we continue to experience significant construction and population growth.

Anya Freeman is founder and CEO of Kind Designs, which 3D prints living seawalls functioning as coral reefs with embedded sensor systems for collecting water quality data. Anya was born in Ukraine and has lived all over the world – she settled in South Florida to attend law school. After her house on South Beach flooded, and frustrated with the lack of innovation around rising sea-levels, Anya worked on finding technological solutions to this global challenge, that both supports the environment and has economies of scale.

Dania interviews Heather Noreen as she embarks on a 3,000 mile journey up the East Coast from Miami to Montreal, spreading climate awareness. Her mission, to help create an army of climate crisis educators and warriors.

Host Dania Toledo talks to Columbia University Climate School researcher Nadia Seeteram, the lead author of a recent landmark study about climate-related migration. Nadia forecasts the profound effects that sea level rise will likely have, not just on South Florida residents, but on the migration of people throughout the world. 

In this episode, we talk with Ben Kirtman, a world-renowned climate scientist and professor at the University of Miami. Talking with host Dania Toledo at his office at the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science, Kirtman explains that even though we’ve had the hottest ocean temperatures on record, there are many reasons to feel hope for a livable future.

Andrew Otazo is a true Miami original. He’s an environmentalist, author and publicist who has advised Congress on Cuba. But he is best known for his grassroots campaign to remove over 20,000 pounds of trash from the mangroves around Miami. Host Dania Toledo talks to Otazo about Miami’s climate challenges, running a marathon with 30 pounds of mangrove trash, and dressing up as a croqueta.