Crosswinds: The Cost of Coal
In this week’s show, we take a look at the health, environmental and financial costs of coal that fall to people living nearby. With the help of our partner podcast Crosswinds, we meet three impacted communities along a railroad connecting coal mines in West Virginia to ports on the East Coast. And we’ll hear how that rail infrastructure was built on the forced labor of incarcerated African Americans. Adrian Wood,...
East Orosi’s Long Struggle for Water Part 2: The Role of Community Utility Districts
In Part 1 of our series on water in the Central Valley of California we visited a town called East Orosi, which has been fighting for clean water for over 20 years. This week we turn our attention to their sewage system, which is also falling apart. Why has it been so difficult for East Orosi to get clean drinking water and fix its sewage problems? To answer that question we take a look at the entities that run things like sewage and...
East Orosi’s Struggle for Clean Drinking Water
East Orosi hasn’t had safe drinking water in over 20 years. The water is full of nitrates, runoff from industrial agriculture, which is harmful to human health. The community has taken action to find a solution, from lobbying at the state capital to working with neighboring towns. And they may finally have one. New California laws, passed in the last five years, have opened up funding to build water infrastructure in small...
Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice (Encore)
Inflammatory diseases are on the rise around the world, and when left unaddressed can turn chronic. Now, doctors are finally starting to pay more attention. But why & when does a beneficial part of our immune system turn against us? Raj Patel & Rupa Marya think it has a lot to do with the world we live in. They talk about climate change, ecological devastation, & the collapse of our planet & what that has to do with...
The Coast Miwok Peoples, Colonization, and the Preservation of Indigenous History (Encore)
Dive into the history of Point Reyes National Seashore, one of the most iconic parks in northern California, with us. Known for rugged sweeping beaches and the famous tule elk, we’ll recount the waves of colonization that violently upended the lives of the Coast Miwok peoples who lived there – and one Indigenous woman’s struggle to preserve her family history. The story of Point Reyes is a story about how the forces of...
The Ethical Dilemma of Geoengineering & Global Warming (Encore)
Geoengineering is defined as some emerging technologies that could manipulate the environment and partially offset some of the impacts of climate change. Seems like the perfect solution for a consumerist society that lives on instant gratification and can’t stop polluting even at the risk of our futures, right? Well, let’s slow down. Today we’ll discuss the dangers of geoengineering and the ethics of the fact that these new...
