Ashes Ashes

Sweeping deregulation of the Airline industry in 1978 brought big changes to air travel. Lower prices, more routes, and consolidation of the market allowed for regional hub-and-spoke models of logistics and greater access to air travel with the associated massive surge in passengers. Now, with the current climate crisis and an industry responsible for 10% of US GHG emissions, we may be suffering from success.

What does the future hold for a business sensitive to many different climate factors? What is the responsibility we each have for our own transportation choices? Will carbon credits or fuel efficient technology save us? And what might we expect for the future of air travel? All this and more on Episode 78 - Grounded.

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

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Awareness of the systemic threats to our world comes at a cost. Often, that cost includes feelings of isolation, existential dread, depression, shock, and other uncomfortable realities. But these emotions do not define the final stage of our journeys. This week we read from listener emails, each describing a different point along the path of coming to terms with uncomfortable truths, and from these we learn that there is a way to move forward. Through confronting the denial that our society wants us to consume, pushing past hopelessness, and expressing our grief, we can begin to reconnect with other humans, build communities, "prep" for the future, and build a better world together.

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.

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For once we thought it would be nice to look at a culture of building things up, rather than the slow collapse of everything around us that we normally discuss. We find this culture in a huge variety of different fields from repair in the home to hacking and building in farming fields to careful experimentation on our bodies to filling in gaps in the beauty world to digging deep into the source code of the software that runs everything. In so many worlds this vibrant idea of "let's do it ourselves" has empowered people, spurred innovation, saved lives, and helped to end the alienation that society so frequently forces on us in our modern economic system. This week is everything DIY as Ashes Ashes digs into the culture of creativity and seeks to learn why this idea is so powerful and pervasive.

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

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The past few decades has seen explosive growth in the number of universities around the world, but it may not be for the noble reasons we would like. Decreased public funding, and new conceptions of universities as engines for economic growth has spurred an intensity of competition for student fees. This shift may help explain rising trends in managerialism, over-quantification of students and researchers, commodification of education, and an 'amenities arms race.' Not to mention staggering student debt, elitism, college admission scandals, and whole countries in protest. Will we be able to turn this failing grade around, or will class be dismissed?

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.

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The IPBES Global Assessment summary is out and we're digging in to all 39 pages this week. The report lays out a grim picture of our current world in terms of life on earth, the ecosystems they create, and our relationship with them that our civilization as we know it depends upon. While not the full 1500+ page report due out later this year, this study is perhaps the most important look at the state of our world that we've ever seen - and if we don't act quickly to fix the problems it so clearly exposes, then nothing less than very the future of humanity may be at risk.

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.

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Protests around the world in 2011 gave riot-gear dealers a three-fold increase in sales of tear gas. In 2013, Turkey used up an entire year's supply of tear gas in just two days, before promptly ordering more. 2015 was the year Kenyan police fired tear gas into a group of schoolchildren as young as 7, and its use is so popular in Uganda that a girls rugby team named themselves the Police Teargas Rangers. Such profligate use of tear gas tempts us to take for granted the conflicts between unruly protesters and the police who demand order. Indeed, Israeli Defence Forces have employed tear gas for close to 90 years against Palestinians.

But tracing the history of tear gas tells the story of a tool that did not simply emerge naturally, but was created from the ground up for the singular purpose of domination. Of countries opposed to the use of gas against citizens on ethical grounds, but eventually caving from the economic necessities of colonial empire; of industrial owners, rich from the poison gas arms race of global war, determined to drum up new demand for their banned products; and finally, of the creeping association of protesters with criminality. More than anything else, the history of this weapon is a revelation into the relationship between the state and her citizens, and the many ways status quo hierarchies are maintained in the face of public outcry against overt expressions of violence and power.

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.

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Well we fucked up and here we are without an episode (it would've been really great, we swear). We didn't want to leave our loyal listeners hanging, so we put something together anyway. Listen in and find out how and why we made such a big screw up, get updated on the state of the show, find out how to grab some sweet swag, and learn about a couple important apps and reports because David and Daniel can't go more than a few minutes without lecturing about things.

It's got everything a regular episode would have (except the episode) and so much more!

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.

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The world may be burning, but more and more companies are giving us green alternatives to our favorite products so we can continue to shop and consume the same way we always have, but without hurting the Earth - or so they would like us to believe. Greenwashing, the practice of making bad things seem environmentally friendly, has run rampant across the shelves of our favorite stores and even carried over to the actions of companies, NGOs, and nations themselves. Is there any hope to the allure of shopping in an environmentally friendly way? What are the greatest greenwashing sins occurring right now? Is there any hope outside of radical change if we want to save the Earth? We think you probably know the answers to these questions, but join us this week as we explore all this and much more in our dive into the mean, green, corporate machines of the world.

Special thanks to fans of the show, The Matching Shoe, for the outro track "Pickin' Up Speed." Be sure to check out their new album!

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.

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New reports find the Arctic to be the warmest it's been in millennia, and complex feedback loops mean this warming could continue unabated for decades to come. While the Arctic may feel like a distant place far removed from the concerns of daily life to many of us, the connections between melting sea ice, global ocean currents, and local weather patterns mean that the effects of a warmer Arctic are closer to home than we realize. It's cooler than cool this week as we discuss enthalpy of fusion, albedo, exploding methane in Siberia, and what it all might mean for our future.

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.

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Half of America's poor pay at least 50% of their income on rent, while a quarter of them pay over 70%, and this trend is worsening as the number of affordable housing units continues to outpace Americans' abilities to pay for them. How did we get in a scenario where so many Americans are surrendering so much just to have a place to live? What incentives drive people to prey upon the needs we have for basic necessities? What does eviction actually mean? All these questions will be answered and we'll get to listen into a special interview with a guest joining us from Santa Cruz to discuss tenant organizing, legislative solutions, and how all of us could be making a difference in our lives and those of our neighbors in this intro episode to housing rights.

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