Get your personal protection gear on as we dive into the second of a two-part conversation about the history of the air conditioning with author Eric Dean Wilson. We learn how researchers in Antarctica proved there really was a big hole in the ozone layer and how one Reagan administration official suggested Americans should just wear hats and sunglasses to avoid the worst of the sun’s UV radiation.

Listen to Part 1 of our conversation here.

Get yourself a copy of After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort.

For more on how the Montreal Protocol came to be, check out Richard Elliot’s Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet

Read the Project Drawdown report on CFCs

And if you’re going to get rid of your old A/C, read the EPA’s advice on how to safely dispose of it first.

Guest bio:

Eric Dean Wilson is the author of After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort. His essays have appeared in Time, Orion, The Baffler, Tin House, and elsewhere. A resident of Flatbush, Brooklyn, he teaches creative writing and American literature at Wagner College.

Brrrr. It’s cold in here.

In the first part of a two-part conversation with author Eric Dean Wilson, we journey into the shady underworld of used refrigerant sales, take a look back at the history of air conditioning, and wonder how we almost managed to destroy all life on earth in our quest for personal comfort.

Get yourself a copy of After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort. 

Read Eric’s recent essay in Orion about this summer’s endless plumes of wildfire smoke. 

Read the Project Drawdown report on CFCs

And if you’re going to get rid of your old A/C, read the EPA’s advice on how to safely dispose of it first.  

Guest bio:

Eric Dean Wilson is the author of After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort. His essays have appeared in Time, Orion, The Baffler, Tin House, and elsewhere. A resident of Flatbush, Brooklyn, he teaches creative writing and American literature at Wagner College.

In this episode, it’s Man vs Pig, and Man is losing. We head to the hill country of Texas with journalist Lauren Larson to understand why scientists, hunters, and even conservationists are so concerned about the scourge of feral hogs destroying crops, polluting water, and even eating baby deer. Discussing her recent article on the pig problem for Texas Monthly, Larson unpacks all the weird dynamics of this man-made ecological disaster and what humans can learn from our remarkable hubris.

To support the show, ⁠visit our Patreon ⁠and become a patron today. You can also sign up for our free monthly newsletter. Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram for climate news and dank memes. You can find Lauren’s article and other links below.

Read Lauren’s feature for Texas Monthly, “Apocalypse Sow: Can Anything Stop the Feral Hog Invasion?”

The various risks of feral pigs

Sid Miller’s “Pork Chopper” bill

Ted Nugent and Brian “Pigman” Quaca go feral pig hunting

“Hog-dogger” Jonathan Dempsey and the Song of the Hounds podcast

Christy Hinterman’s Atlasta Home Sanctuary

Bio: Lauren Larson is a magazine writer based in Austin, Texas. She has worked as an editor at Texas Monthly and is a regular contributor to GQ. She often writes about lifestyle and culture, and every so often, she publishes a fantastic celebrity profile.

In this explosive episode, we talk with the filmmakers behind How to Blow Up a Pipeline, a new movie adapted from Andreas Malm’s political manifesto about why we should all start sabotaging fossil fuel infrastructure. Featuring director Daniel Goldhaber, writer Jordan Sjol, and editor Dan Garber, we talk about why eco-thrillers usually end in tears, the political uses of direct action, and how to stay off the FBI’s terrorist watch list by not showing every step of the bomb-making process.

Further reading and viewing:

Stream How to Blow Up a Pipeline in the usual places or find it in a cinema near you.

You can buy the book that inspired the movie from lefty publisher, Verso.

Read about when U.S oil prices fell below zero for the first time in history. 

Watch this Democracy Now interview with Jessica Resnick and Ruby Montoya, who were sentenced for sabotaging the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Guest bios:

Daniel Goldhaber is an American director, screenwriter, and producer. In 2018, he directed Cam, a psychological horror film set in the world of webcam pornography. In 2022, he co-wrote, directed, and produced the thriller film How to Blow Up a Pipeline, and is currently working on a new project.

Jordan Sjol is a cinema and media studies scholar with a PhD in the Program in Literature from Duke University. His research is broadly focused on media technologies and global power regimes.

Daniel Garber is a filmmaker and editor based in Brooklyn, NY.

In this follow-up to Episode 1's conversation on incels (involuntary celibate men) and their obsession with the idea of the alpha male, we drill into the origins of the alpha — and discover it's all pretty much a myth. Our guest is Connor Meyer, a PhD student at the University of Montana who has been studying Yellowstone National Park's wolves, the animal the incel community seems most fixated on. Connor has a new study out that suggests a lot of the more aggressive behavior exhibited by wolves in the park has nothing to do with genetics but instead a little parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. To support the show, ⁠visit our Patreon ⁠and become a patron today. You can also sign up for our free monthly newsletter. Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram for climate news and dank memes. You can find Connor's study on "toxo" and other resources below.

1. Rudolph Shenkel’s 1947 study of wolf behavior.

   
   



2. Dr. Frans De Waal's 1982 book Chimpanzee Politics, which purportedly became a favorite of Republican House of Representative’ Speaker, Newt Gingrich. 

   
   



3. Michigan State University’s Mara Hyena Project. 

   
   



4. Connor Meyer, Kira Cassidy, et al.’s paper on the influences of Toxoplasma gondii’s on Yellowstone National Park wolves. 

   
   



5. The Yellowstone Wolf Project. 

   
   



6. What exactly is telemetry and how is it used in wolf research? 

   
   



7. KIra Cassidy’s TEDx Talk, “Aging in the wild: lessons from animals about the value of growing old.” 

   
   



8. Wildlife biologist Diane Boyd, who has been called the “Jane Goodall of Wolves.” 

   
   

Guest bio: Connor Meyer is a native of Whidbey Island, Washington, and is currently a wildlife biology doctoral student in the University of Montana's Ungulate Ecology Lab, which is part of the W.A. Franke College of Forestry & Conservation. His study on the influence of Toxoplasma gondii on wolf behavior in Yellowstone National Park was published in the journal Communications Biology in November 2022. 

CORRECTION:

We want to clarify that Connor Meyer and his colleagues didn't discover any toxo-infected wolves killed by cougars in Yellowstone National Park during the course of their study. The study only hypothesized that the behavioural effects of toxoplasmosis may create a feedback loop that increases spatial overlap and disease transmission between wolves and cougars.

In the first of this two-part series, we're talking about the myth of the alpha male, where it came from, how it's developed, and why it has remained so prevalent in our culture, despite the fact that a lot of research has overturned the idea.

Perhaps the group most obsessed with the idea of alpha males are incels (involuntarily celibate men), who have adopted an elaborate pseudoscientific misogyny that explains why women won't have sex with them. We spoke with Callum Hood, the head of reserach at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, about how incels look to "nature" to explain human society and justify their beliefs, how incel forums foster and spread hate online, and what (if anything) can be done about them.

To support the show, ⁠visit our Patreon ⁠and become a patron today. You can also sign up for our free monthly newsletter. Follow us on Twitter and on Instagram for climate news and dank memes.

You can find Callum's report for CCDH and other resources below.

1. CCDH research on Jake Davison, a UK mass shooter involved in incel communities

   
   



2. We Hunted the Mammoth is a blog covering the manosphere that has been around nearly a decade now and is a useful 'historical' resource

   
   



3. Article explaining how former pick-up artist Roosh V described raping women in his books

   
   



4. Another article about a different pick-up artist describing having raped someone

   
   



5. Former pick-up artist Roosh V's blog on legalizing rape

   
   



6. Laura Bates' book "Men Who Hate Women" is very good on incels and crossover with white supremacism

   
   



7. Article about a leading incel moderator recently announcing he is now in a sexual relationship

   
   



8. CCDH's report The Incelosphere

   
   

Non-toxic is a new podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of masculinity and the climate crisis, hosted by critic and cultural journalist Daniel Penny.

Every week, we’ll be looking at climate through the lens of culture, politics, media, and everyday life to understand what researchers call "the eco-gender gap."

Join us for conversations with experts, journalists, and regular guys on topics ranging from why incels are obsessed with alphas to how chemical exposure is killing our sperm count.

Season 1, Episode 1 drops June 1st, 2023.

To support the show visit patreon.com/nontoxicpodcast and become a patron today.