Connect the Dots

In this episode of Connect the Dots, host Rob Verchick talks climate migration with CPR Member Scholar Maxine Burkett, NRDC advocate and third-generation Mexican-American Gina Ramirez, and Aaron Bernstein, Interim Director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard University. Imagine a world where an afternoon thunderstorm floods your basement with sewage and industrial pollutants. You come to dread the rain. Summer spaces that used to be dedicated to water balloon fights and bike rides become venues for wildfires and hurricanes. A hard day’s work leads to an even harder battle with disease. It all may sound like a nightmare, but then again, it doesn’t compare to the situation your family previously faced, starving and fending off violence when your livelihood was destroyed by drought. These are some of the realities encountered by climate change migrants around the country. The planet is getting hotter, drier, wetter, and weirder. And marginalized groups of many types are in the bull’s eye. 

This season on Connect the Dots, we’re looking at people living in the cross hairs of climate change, those disproportionately carrying the burden of the world and suffering on a daily basis.  African Americans and people of color make up one of these communities. Packed into neighborhoods surrounded by smokestacks and highways that are unusually susceptible to floods, blocked from greenspaces and left without a voice, African Americans face a dire physical and mental toll when it comes to climate change, including high rates of cancer and respiratory illnesses. Exploring these and related issues in this episode are CPR Member Scholar Maxine Burkett, the Sierra Club's Leslie Fields, and Bronx resident and activist Mychal Johnson. 

In this episode, host Rob Verchick talks with CPR Member Scholars Michael Duff and Thomas McGarity about worker safety in the era of the coronavirus – the gaps in law, regulation, and enforcement that leave workers exposed to the virus while permitting employers to escape accountability for putting workers and the public in danger. The conversation touches on the difficulty of creating foolproof physical transmission barriers, the Trump administration's scuttling of an Obama-initiated rule to prevent transmission of dangerous pathogens in the workplace, and efforts to deny essential employees or their surviving family members the right to recover damages for infection.  

Duff is a Professor of Law at the University of Wyoming College of Law in Laramie. McGarity holds the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Chair in Administrative Law at the University of Texas in Austin. He is a member of the board of directors of the Center for Progressive Reform and a past president of the organization.

In this episode, host Rob Verchick talks with Dr. Andrew Duxbury about being a geriatric physician and medical school professor during the COVID-19 era. Dr. Duxbury teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

In this episode of Connect the Dots, host Rob Verchick talks with Center for Progressive Reform Board Member Sid Shapiro and Oxford University professor Liz Fisher about the role and importance of expertise in government agencies, rulemaking, and public policy development. This topic is of particular interest as there has been a campaign in the Trump administration and by others to ignore or eliminate that expertise in a range of different ways, which hinders the ability of agencies to deliver on their legislative obligations. 

In this episode, host Rob Verchick talks with Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholars Melissa Powers (Lewis & Clark Law School) and Karen Sokol (Loyola University New Orleans College of Law) about the 9th Circuit's dismissal of the Juliana v. United States youth climate justice case, what it means -- and doesn't mean -- for other climate cases working their way through the courts, and more.

In this episode, host Rob Verchick talks with CPR Board Members Gilonne d'Origny and Laurie Ristino about the threats to farming as usual. They also taste-test an Impossible Burger. 

In this episode, host Rob Verchick talks with Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholar Noah Sachs. They discuss Sachs' new article on the Paris Agreement and what's next for the world's climate change accord now that the United States has started officially withdrawing from the agreement.

In this episode of Connect the Dots, Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholars Alejandro Camacho and Robert Glicksman discuss the essential roles of government and regulation -- and how to improve both. It's based on their new book, Reorganizing Government: A Functional and Dimensional Framework.

In this episode, host Rob Verchick talks climate change, energy, and coastal protections with former U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.