In this interview Larry Ward, author of the book America's Racial Karma, connects his Buddhist analysis of race in the United States to the climate crisis. The conversation shows how the suffering of the earth entangles with the patterns of America's struggles with race; both proceed from acquisitive intentions. Larry passed away last year, 2025. Rest in peace and rest in power.

Let's talk about Greenland, before everybody forgets about it. Less than a month ago, the United States was almost in a military standoff with eight European countries, two of them nuclear powers. The E.U. was threatening to cut off all trade with the United States, which would have caused a depression on both sides of the Atlantic. And NATO, the biggest alliance on the globe, might now be caput. Is President Trump just a moron, or is there a climate change explanation for why the U.S. felt it had to 'own' Greenland? This episode answers that question.

The world is beset by floods, fires, inundations, mudslides, landslides, gas explosions, on and on. We chronicle them here to share with the world just how extensive this is, at present, right now. It's somewhat mesmerizing to listen to. This episode covers approximately the end of summer 2025.

Delhi, the capital city of India, has the worst air quality ever measured. The super-massive carbon emissions make the daily air as gray as fog. This week we talk with Yukti Singh, a physician born and raised in Delhi, who grew up breathing this air. Not only does she have first hand information about it that's interesting, and enough medical expertise to explain what this does to a human body, but she has a perspective on its role in life that, in many respects, fits the global climate crisis.

We're still digesting the recent events in Venezuela. There is way too much to say not to do a second episode about it. Last week we argued this was straight up colonization. This week I'm challenging listeners a little bit by suggesting that because this new oil imperialism is so clear cut without pretext and without claiming any redeeming factors, this is easier to oppose than the older imperialist colonization was. Plus some of the legal complications that might ensue from how they've handled President Maduro so far.

What's happening in Venezuela is colonization for oil. There's no secret agenda, they're not hiding it, it's what they say it is: an attempt at direct control of the largest reserve of oil in the world. It's backed up by a naval blockade and a threatened invasion. The Trump administration isn't saying this behind closed doors but right out in the open, on global television. This week's episode starts to take stock of this new world. We end with some ways to push back.

This is the latest in our occasional series running down the climate disasters that are happening now, presently. We hope to convey the level of destruction and disruption that climate change is creating across the world right now. It's not a problem for the future or for our children or grandchildren. It's a problem for us. And it will only get worse from here if we keep on burning mass quantities of fossil fuels. [Aired October 2025]

With the help of Marina Rivera Ramos of Rutgers University, we explore indigenous perspectives that are relevant to climate change. The place-based collective continuance has lessons for how we might live differently from how we do. If we had based more of our society on these indigenous world views, we might have avoided climate change altogether, and maybe if we do going forward, we might reduce some of its worst effects.

We analyze the train wreck that was COP30 and predict the train wreck that will be COP31. At COP30 the toilets didn't work, the venue flooded before it caught on fire, and nothing of substance was agreed. For COP31, they couldn't even agree on where it would take place. These are the United Nations-sponsored conferences that are supposed to be the main forum for addressing climate change. So what do we do when there is no global cooperation among governments for addressing climate change?

This episode is in solidarity with the recent indigenous demonstrations at Cop30 in Brazil. Before there was the climate conference known as COP, there was Pre-COP, a negotiating meeting between second-tier delegates held in Milan, Italy. Extinction Rebellion made a protest, blocking traffic, creating a huge swooping bird installation, and going to jail. It caused at least a brief disruption of the conference. We interview one of the lead organizers, who joins us from Rome.