In This Climate

In this week's Air Check, we talk about the (former) acting director of the Bureau of Land Management who served unlawfully for 424 days, the scientist running for Senate in Wyoming, and International Coffee Day.

Resources:

Judge removes Trump's public lands boss, William Perry Pendley, after governor sued

Meet the climate expert running to be the first female scientist in the Senate

Rebuilding the coffee system for resilience

We've talked a lot about the ways we incarcerate people and subject them to environmentally unsafe conditions. We've told stories and shared statistics and legal arguments. We'll do some of that in this episode, too.

But the reason we reached out to Mei Azaad with the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons, and the reason she called on Malik Washington, is because improving conditions requires action. Mei and Malik know a lot about how to make that happen.

The Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons: https://fight-toxic-prisons.org/

The San Francisco Bay View: https://sfbayview.com/

In our first Air Check (a short, weekly conversation on current events), we talk through the environmental implications of a changing supreme court, how long Bloomington has been without significant rain, and other weather events with climate change signatures.

This episode, we're taking a deeper look at environmental injustices in an around prisons. How are they sited, what do they emit, and what does all of this mean for people locked inside?

We start with the history of the St. Louis and Central Michigan correctional facilities with Dr. Elizabeth Bradshaw, move through trends with Candice Bernd and legal arguments with Taylor Carpenter, and start the discussion around what can be done to improve conditions.

America's Toxic Prisons: https://earthisland.org/journal/americas-toxic-prisons/

Taylor's legal note: https://mckinneylaw.iu.edu/ihlr/pdf/vol17p229.pdf

This summer, people in United States and beyond took to the streets to demand racial justice. One of the loudest calls was to defund and abolish the police, but not just the police. Abolitionists have long worked to dismantle the broader U.S. carceral state, which imprisons more people than any other nation.

"Abolition has to be 'green.'" Ruth Wilson Gilmore told Chenjerai Kumanyika for the Intercepted podcast. "It has to take seriously the problem of environmental harm, environmental racism, and environmental degradation."

In the first episode of our prison ecology series, we go live with critical environmental justice researcher David Pellow to discuss the intersection of mass incarceration and environmental justice.

If you have any thoughts or questions about the show, you can tweet at us or send an email to [email protected].

In the third and final episode of our land defender series, we talk with Eduardo Brondizio, David Rodríguez Goyes, and Stella Emery Santana about the international systems that have long exploited indigenous land and resources, as well as indigenous and peasant resistance efforts and opportunities to support land defenders.

If you have any thoughts or questions about the show, you can tweet at us or send an email to [email protected].

In the second episode of our land defender series, we talk with land defender Marvin Wilcox and Front Line Defenders representative Adam Shapiro. They walk us through Marvin's story, in which agricultural producers in Panama take on the state and a transnational fruit company to protect their land and health, as well as the patterns commonly encountered by land defenders around the world.

If you have any thoughts or questions about the show, you can tweet at us or send an email to [email protected].

Resources:

ASAMBLEA NACIONAL Ley Nº 55

2019 Dublin Platform Testimony - Marvin Wilcox, Panama

Banapiña: Espada de Damócles sobre los productores del Barú

In this bonus episode, Janet McCabe talks with Scott Russell Sanders, who Kathleen Dean Moore described as "an honest man in a time of lies, a wise man in a time of foolishness, a healer in a time of wounds, and a beautiful writer in a time of ugly rants." He taught English at Indiana University and is the celebrated author of more than 20 books including a collection of essays called The Way of Imagination.

We talk with him about that most difficult subject of solving our environmental challenges, about his most recent book, and about the wisdom he's accumulated over the years.

If you want to reach out with feedback on an episode or with an idea or a pitch, you can send an email to [email protected]. You can also follow us on social media. Our handle is @thisclimatepod. And last but not least, you can leave us a review! It not only helps us, but it helps other listeners find us, and everybody appreciates that.

According to UK-based Global Witness, 14 land and environment defenders were killed in Honduras over the course of 2019, three years after the murder of celebrated Indigenous land defender Berta Cáceres.

In the first episode of our land defender series, we go live with journalist Nina Lakhani to discuss the life of Cáceres and the long campaign against her. We also check in with Indiana Public Broadcasting's Rebecca Thiele, who covers environmental issues in ITC's home state.

If you have any thoughts or questions about the show, you can tweet at us or send an email to [email protected].

In the finale of our first season, we talk with environmental attorney Barbara Freese about her new book Industrial Strength Denial and learn about the mechanisms behind corporate climate change denial.