Ashes Ashes

We've published our big border show and now take a chance to reflect on the production (and why it took so long) as we ease back into weekly episodes. A lot happened over the past few months and we briefly address new border developments, the Australian Fires, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Daniel chats about business, Christopher Columbus, and cannibalism and you don't want to miss it.

A full transcript is coming soon and you can find detailed links and sources (plus credits and more) on our website ashesashes.org.

Find more information along with relevant news and links on your favorite social network @ashesashescast.

CC BY-SA 4.0

There is a crisis at the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Global forces of climate change, development and war conspire in a deadly feedback loop of human suffering. At the heart of this crisis is the most sprawling system of detention and surveillance the world has ever seen, relying on unjust criminalization for the benefit of a few sources of power. What does it all mean, how did we get here, and what can we do about it?

Learn more at https://borders.ashesashes.org

(00:00) PART I: The Border Crisis

(3:02:50) PART II: How We Got Here

(6:49:57) PART III: What Can We Do?

Music by Juan Camillo Garza

Detailed links and sources (plus credits and more) are available on our website ashesashes.org.

Find more information along with relevant news and links on your favorite social network @ashesashescast.

CC BY-SA 4.0

A real silviculturist provides inputs on last week's show // David provides first-hand knowledge of essential bathroom upgrades // The big business of promoting entrepreneurship abroad // Co-opting social scientists // Future show updates

A full transcript is available as well as detailed links and sources (plus credits and more) on our website ashesashes.org.

Find more information along with relevant news and links on your favorite social network @ashesashescast.

CC BY-SA 4.0

We're missing the forest and the trees. Not only has logging exploded in recent years, but it is has done so often in the explicit name of sustainability and green energy. We examine the authenticity of these practices as well as look at some of the long-term destructive consequences that forest disturbances can wreak, in some cases (e.g. extinction debt) reverberating a century in the future. Additionally, the same economic forces that destroy pristine and critical ecosystems are the same that seek to divide and conquer indigenous people by pitting them against one another and against the health of the very land they depend on.

A full transcript is available as well as detailed links and sources (plus credits and more) on our website ashesashes.org.

Find more information along with relevant news and links on your favorite social network @ashesashescast.

CC BY-SA 4.0

You asked for topic updates so we deliver. Bird populations are not doing well in North America and researchers are shocked at how effective it is to connect the dots. Tropical storms in Texas remind us of the economic paradoxes we've placed ourselves in. In addition, we reflect on Friday's climate strike from New York and Boston and start tackling the looming question in all of our minds over the climate crisis, "What now?"

A full transcript is available as well as detailed links and sources (plus credits and more) on our website ashesashes.org.

Find more information along with relevant news and links on your favorite social network @ashesashescast.

CC BY-SA 4.0

In 1967 the world witnessed the signing of the Outer Space Treaty, and now over 100 countries have joined the international agreement to declare space as "the province of all mankind," to be used "exclusively for peaceful purposes", and kept free of weapons and military installations. This idealism is a far cry from current reality, with US officials espousing values of domination and exclusive advantages to be maintained in space, while other countries are blowing satellites out of the sky with missiles to prove themselves mighty "space powers." Will we ever reclaim space as the peaceful province of all mankind, or will the road to Donald J. Kessler's infamous scenario be paved with neutral particle beams, lasers, nano-satellite swarms, machine-gun mounted satellites, and giant tungsten rods?

A full transcript is available as well as detailed links and sources (plus credits and more) on our website ashesashes.org.

Find more information along with relevant news and links on your favorite social network @ashesashescast.

CC BY-SA 4.0

It's another chat episode as we take a break between deep dives and this week we explore in more depth some of the experiences Daniel has had in the organizing for his new work. It turns out there are important lessons to be learned for not just Daniel, but all of us even in his first few days on the job. David also shares his latest organizing work and explores some trends in the world around us.

Reflections on naming and shaming, community work, food justice and agricultural sustainability, the tipping point of a global future, community radio, rants, and more - this week we've got it all!

A full transcript is available as well as detailed links and sources (plus credits and more) on our website ashesashes.org.

Find more information along with relevant news and links on your favorite social network @ashesashescast.

CC BY-SA 4.0

Over 100 billion people have died on this planet and been laid to rest through countless burial traditions and customs, and while a majority of these passings simply re-entered natural ecological cycles, many popular burial traditions of today require exorbitant additions of resources that cause dramatic natural disturbances guaranteed to have a lasting environmental impact. But beyond this, it appears that the way we live in society carries over to the ways we die. The same alienation, segregation, and disconnection from our land and ourselves that we experience in life can all be found in our cultural habits surrounding death. Can we imagine a better way? Or will this grave situation only deepen?

A full transcript is available as well as detailed links and sources (plus credits and more) on our website ashesashes.org.

Find more information along with relevant news and links on your favorite social network @ashesashescast.

CC BY-SA 4.0

Another week, another collapse chat! This week we explore bullshit jobs through a listener email, dive into the upcoming Earth Strike event through interviews with activists and organizers, and take a look at the playbook of the forces who want to stop activism at all stages. There's a lot to learn as we jump through all these different topics so settle in and enjoy the ride!

Our most sincere apologies for the sound quality in some of these interviews, sometimes you just have to roll with what you're given.

A full transcript is available as well as detailed links and sources (plus credits and more) on our website ashesashes.org.

Find more information along with relevant news and links on your favorite social network @ashesashescast.

CC BY-SA 4.0

The IPCC released their special report "Climate Change and Land" to examine how human-led land use change is contributing to global warming irrespective of our direct GHG emissions, and how this might impact our future resilience in the face of desertification, land degradation, and food insecurity. This episode features a ton of facts: surface air temperature is warming twice as fast above land compared to the global average; land change alone accounts for a whopping 1/4 of all anthropological based warming; agriculture is responsible for 70% of global freshwater use; and industrial agricultural methods along with nitrogen fertilizer use have exploded so rapidly over the past several decades that top soil is being lost at rates 100 times faster than the earth's ability to replenish it. But more importantly, these facts are just the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg and give way to plenty of endless rants on all of the usual failures of the IPCC's failures and omissions.

A full transcript is available as well as detailed links and sources (plus credits and more) on our website ashesashes.org.

Find more information along with relevant news and links on your favorite social network @ashesashescast.

CC BY-SA 4.0