A 20+ year career as a foreign correspondent in Japan, Brazil and China has given Jonathan time to reflect on the great responsibility and privilege of the job, but also the preposterousness of being tasked with summing up another country. Speaking to us while on sabbatical in the Amazon rainforest, Jonathan tells how he came to realize that the environment is the most important issue of our time and how that lead him to his current job as Global Environment Editor for The Guardian in London.

We talk about where he is in the Amazon (5:22), how he is the product of then-robust UK social welfare programs and went to Manchester University during the music boom there (9:45), his move to Japan and first steps/misteps into journalism (17:42), getting his foot in the door at The Guardian as a stringer in Japan (23:03), moving to China as a full-time correspondent (30:41), switching to Brazil in search of a break just as the country fell off the cliff (42:41), the jarring return to the UK after so many years abroad (49:20), de-ghetto-izing environmental reporting (54:52), The Guardian’s big feature series last year spotlighting The Polluters most responsible for historic greenhouse gas emissions (59:50), and finish on the lightning round (1:05:55).

Here are links to some of the things we talked about:

Rainforest Journalism Fund - http://bit.ly/2tQ2ERV

Concrete: the most destructive material on earth - http://bit.ly/2GmjR8d

Jonathan's book When a Billion Chinese Jump - https://amzn.to/37u8Jlz

Opening story in The Polluters series in the Guardian - http://bit.ly/2NYijFK

Mongabay - http://bit.ly/38ByRv5

NYT story on methane leaks - https://nyti.ms/38Gne6c

Jonathan's story on North Korea air raid drill - http://bit.ly/3aF2Ofr

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Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats

From: freemusicarchive.org

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