Non-Toxic

A fifth of the world’s oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a sliver of ocean between Iran and the Gulf States. Since the beginning of the US Israeli war in Iran, that traffic has slowed to a trickle, which has sent the price of oil skyward. Countries around the world are doing everything they can to accelerate the transition because whether they care about the climate crisis or not, they recognize that there is no choke point on the sun.

In this episode of Non-Toxic, I’m joined by fitness influencer Colin Davis to explore the intersection of muscle hypertrophy, masculinity, and climate activism. You might remember Colin from the Carbon Bros finale, but a brief cameo didn’t do him justice—so we’re diving into the full, extended conversation here.

Colin is breaking the mold by proving bodybuilding isn’t just for the right wing. He argues that to reach men today, the left needs to meet them in their own digital spaces and speak their language. We get into the surprising links between empathy and physical strength, while Colin deconstructs some of my own biases about gym culture. It’s a wide-ranging, candid conversation that feels like a long-overdue hang.

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Is our “green” future actually being built on a global sacrifice zone?

In this episode, I’m sitting down with my former New Yorker colleague Nicolas Niarchos to break down his wild new book, The Elements of Power. It’s a massive, globe-spanning investigation into the battery supply chain—tracking the line from the Congo and Indonesia to Israel, China, and the US—to show how clean energy’s big promises often rely on violence, child labor, and deep corruption.

With conflict in the Middle East driving up gas prices, plenty of EV drivers are feeling pretty good about themselves right now. But as Nicolas points out, the supply chain behind those batteries is just as messy as the oil industry—it just happens to be working a bit better at the moment.

We get into Nicolas’s firsthand stories from Congolese cobalt mines, where hand-dug pits collapse on workers with terrifying frequency. We talk about how mineral wealth completely runs Congolese politics, and why cobalt has turned into the “new oil” in a high-stakes geopolitical wrestling match between the US and China.

Make sure you stick around for the end: Nicolas tells the insane story of getting detained by the Congolese secret police while looking into the murky overlaps between mining money, the president’s family, and local militias. It’s a total wild ride.

P.S. Nicolas just launched a fantastic new magazine with another New Yorker alum called Now Voyager. Issue one is out right now, both online and on newsstands. If you’re into the kind of boots-on-the-ground reporting we talk about today, you’re going to love it. Check it out!

This episode is sponsored by Bluecorn Candles. Use the code NONTOXIC20 for 20% off your first order.

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If you’ve been reading the latest batch of the Epstein files, you may have noticed an unlikely name from the world of longevity and “Medicine 2.0”: Dr Peter Attia. To understand the connection between Jeffrey Epstein and Attia, I sat down with Sami Reiss, author of the Super Health. An expert in “dark wellness,” Sami interviewed Attia way back for GQ and has been following his rise (and fall) for a long time now.

In our chat, he breaks down the history of longevity medicine and Attia’s kind of basic approach to the science of aging. Hint: eat protein and do strength training. We get into the emails showing Attia’s years-long post-conviction relationship with Epstein, and we also touch on Epstein’s broader interest in genetics and eugenics (including a proposed sperm bank of Nobel laureates). And of course we gotta talk about masculinity’s role in all this—especially the obsession with testosterone replacement therapy in the longevity space. Because it’s really all about erections at the end of the day.

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Are you a genetic loser with a recessed maxilla? Have you been brutally framemogged? Will you ever ascend? Welcome to the world of looksmaxxing, where all your problems can be solved with specially crafted fitness protocols that will change your life, or at least mutilate your face.

In this episode of Non-Toxic, we’ll be talking about one squarejawed looksmaxxer in particular, Clavicular, whose advice on fitness, skincare, and more extreme methods of changing your appearance have been ricocheting around the internet the past few months. At only 20 years old, Clav has recently risen to fame in part because of his buddy, neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.

I decided to go deeper on looksmaxxing, so I invited a new pal onto the show, Madeline Peltz, who’s got a great Substack called Number Two Pencil, where she writes about the far-right, Gen Z, and popular culture. Previously, she covered rightwing internet and pop culture for Media Matters. Her forthcoming book, Good Girls and Alpha Males, is about the conservative movement’s campaign to recruit Gen Z and is slated for publication in Spring 2027.

Come ascend with us.

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In this subscriber-only episode, I talk to writer and broadcaster Richard Seymour about his recent book Disaster Nationalism. Richard breaks down how his concept of disaster nationalism is different from the Coke Classic version of nationalism, and how real and imaginary disasters play into the hands of the far-right. We get into how to exploit social crises and conspiracies and what role masculinity plays in this pyschic morass. And in case you’re sick of hearing about Trump, we zoom out to discuss how all this is playing out beyond the US, touching on disaster nationalist movements in India, Brazil, Hungary, and more. It’s a real corker!

Want to learn more? You can buy a copy of Richard’s book through Verso. He’s also the author of numerous other books about politics, including Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics and The Twittering Machine. His writing appears in the The New York Times, the London Review of Books, the Guardian, Prospect, Jacobin, and lots of other places.

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Every year on January 7th, the artist Jay Critchley holds a ceremony inviting attendees to “re-root” themselves to the earth. He also pushes a flaming Christmas tree into the harbor. In this episode from the vault, I visit Jay’s Provincetown studio to discuss everything from his conceptual patriotic condom company to the problem with “carbon captured broligarchs.” And you’re on the Cape and happen to catch it, this year’s theme is “Crypto Himflation”. Enjoy!

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 Amy and I are back after a little hiatus to bring you our long awaited Carbon Bros mailbag episode.  We received so many interesting responses from people around the world. Thanks for sharing your stories, sparking ideas, and raising pivotal questions.

Carbon Bros is a collaboration between Drilled Media and Non-Toxic, written and co-hosted by Amy Westervelt and me, Daniel Penny.

If you want to listen to more amazing climate reporting by Amy, head to Drilled’s vast archive. The investigations they’ve done—on everything from the history of greenwashing to dirty oil deals in Guyana—are superb. And if you’d like to support what I’m doing or check out previous seasons of Non-Toxic, become a paid subscriber today.

Democrats did surprisingly well in the recent spate of elections. One of the key pieces of that story was that young men came back to the party after supposedly abandoning them in 2024 for Trump and the far right. So what happened in that intervening year to change their minds?

With insights from Charlie Sabgir of Young Men Research Project, this episode unpacks the surprising political trends among young male voters, the impact of affordability issues, the long tail of COVID, and the gender divide when it comes to anxiety about AI. Are we witnessing a true change in the political allegiance of young men or just another swing in the pendulum? Tune in to find out!

Non-Toxic Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. Like what you’re hearing? Support the show and get full access to Non-Toxic Newsletter today.

Democratic pundits have been wringing their hands about how they lost young men in 2024 and how to win them back. With Election Day comming up, I thought I’d share this bonus episode of Carbon Bros, in which I talk to Michigan US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about what the Democratic establishment is getting wrong and how to redirect young men’s anger towards the people actually making their lives worse. From stagnant wages to sports gambling addictions to poison in our air and water, El-Sayed thinks there’s only one group we should actually be blaming: billionaires. Some folks are calling him the jacked Zohran.

El-Sayed has got another year to campaigning to do, but already he’s beating Republicans at their own game. He recently worked out in a viral video with Dr. Mike and benched an impressive 315, but conservatives on X tried to dock him on his back arch. (Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr. can’t complete one clean pullup rep.)

Carbon Bros is a collaboration between Drilled Media and Non-Toxic, written and co-hosted by Amy Westervelt and me, Daniel Penny.

If you want to listen to more amazing climate reporting by Amy, head to Drilled’s vast archive. The investigations they’ve done—on everything from the history of greenwashing to dirty oil deals in Guyana—are superb.

Non-Toxic Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.