The Nation Podcasts

“This is about life. And this extractive industry is not a giver of life, it is a taker of life.”

On March 23, 2026, a massive explosion tore through the Valero refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, shaking homes and sending a plume of smoke over a community that has lived with oil and petrochemical pollution for generations. In this episode of A People’s Climate, host Shilpi Chhotray talks with John Beard Jr., a former refinery worker who spent 38 years inside the industry, about what happens when global oil decisions become local realities.

From U.S. policy toward Venezuelan oil to the expansion of petrochemical production and the world's demand for plastics, Beard connects the decisions made far from Port Arthur to the people who pay the price close to home. They explore who benefits from the fossil fuel economy, who bears its risks, and what it would take to build a transition that doesn't leave communities to pay for it with their health and their lives.

Key Topics

• Global oil, local consequences: How decisions about oil, foreign policy, and energy affect communities right here in the United States.
• The price of fossil fuels: Why communities like Port Arthur bear the pollution, health risks, and industrial disasters that make fossil fuel profits possible.
• The Valero explosion: What the March 2026 refinery explosion revealed about the risks fence-line communities live with every day.
• Oil & petrochemicals: How Gulf Coast communities became sacrifice zones for refining, plastics, and global fossil fuel demand.
• Who benefits?: The disconnect between the industry's promise of jobs and prosperity and the economic realities facing Port Arthur residents.
• A just transition: What it means to move away from fossil fuels while repairing the damage already done and protecting workers and communities.
• Building power: Why communities need political power to challenge an industry whose reach extends from local government to global geopolitics.

Resources

• Port Arthur Community Action Network
• A People’s Climate Episode: An Unreasonable Woman with Diane Wilson - Another Texan’s historic win against the petrochemical industry
• U.S. Gulf South Climate and Environmental Justice organizations:
• Better Brazoria: Clean Air & Water 
• Cheek Texas Community Association 
• Climate Conversation Brazoria County 
• Concerned Citizens of St. John Parish
• For a Better Bayou
• Freeport Haven Project for Environmental Justice
• Houston Climate Movement
• Mossville Environmental Action Now (MEAN)
• Permian Gulf Coast Coalition
• RISE St. James 
• S.A.F.E. Communities
• San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper
• South End Charlton-Pollard Greater Historic Community Association
• Southern Sector Rising
• t.e.j.a.s. (Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services)
• The Vessel Project of Louisiana

Credits

Presented by Counterstream Media and The Nation

Powered by Wildseeds Fund

Host: Shilpi Chhotray

Executive Producer: Mindy Ramaker 

Engineer: Ameeta Ganatra

Project Manager: Asia Simms

John Beard, Jr.

John Beard, Jr. is the Founder and CEO of the Port Arthur Community Action Network. After working in the oil industry for 38 years, Beard became a community advocate in his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, dedicated to holding the industry accountable. He founded the Port Arthur Community Action Network to fight for health and safety protections in an area dense with refineries, export terminals, and petrochemical plants. Over the past year, Beard has emerged as a national and global environmental justice leader, serving as a civil society delegate to the U.N. Plastic Treaty negotiations, the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Conference of Parties negotiations on climate change.

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Metallica says they stay out of politics, so Danny and Derek are reassessing their approach to the show. In this week’s news: Navi Pillay wins the Nobel Peace Prize, angering Trump (3:51); Ansar Allah strikes Saudi airports and oil facilities (7:58) while fighting continues on multiple fronts in Yemen (11:35); attacks on commercial ships escalate near the Strait of Hormuz (13:45), and the U.S. prepares a new bombing campaign against Iran (15:59); Israeli forces kill at least eight people in Gaza on the first anniversary of the “ceasefire” as the Palestinian Authority postpones elections until at least September 2027 (19:12); in southern Lebanon, Israeli forces demolish dozens of towns and villages (22:22); China’s trade surplus grows at a record pace (24:04); Egyptian drone strikes kill at least 72 gold miners in Sudan (25:43); Ethiopian forces advance toward the Eritrean border (28:20); former Congolese president Joseph Kabila forms a new rebel coalition with M23 (31:38) as the country’s Ebola outbreak surpasses 9,000 confirmed cases (33:27); Trump suspends sanctions on Russian diesel exports and clashes with Zelensky (34:24); Trump declares a Russia-Ukraine energy ceasefire that fails to take hold as Ukraine reports several days without Western intelligence on Russian airstrikes (37:40); Ukrainian forces report temporary restrictions on Starlink service (38:52); and the U.S. seeks control of frozen Russian assets held in Europe (43:07).

Don’t forget to pre-order Welcome to the Crusades: The Second Crusade with promo code CRUSADES15 for 15% off. Offer is valid through October 27!

More of Danny’s work at Imperialist Realism.

More of Derek’s work at Foreign Exchanges.

Catch a replay of last night’s livestream.

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Data centers are being approved without proper oversight into their broader impacts, but there are organizations pushing back. Martha Dark joins Paris Marx to discuss her work at Foxglove and how legal challenges against data centers are imposing stronger rules and reframing false narratives from policymakers and Big Tech.

Martha Dark is co-executive director of Foxglove.

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Danny and Derek speak with historian Stuart Schrader about the history and political power of police unions in the US. They discuss the rise of police unions in the 1960s, their relationship with organized labor, resistance to the civil rights movement and affirmative action, the role of race in policing, bipartisan support for policing and the 1990s crime bills, the growing political influence of the Border Patrol union, and the future of police reform and abolition.

Get your copy of Stuart’s book Blue Power: How Police Organize to Protect and Serve Themselves.

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Most political reporting has been about Democrats’ chances of taking control of Congress, but the Governors’ races hold the key to election protection in the 2028 presidential vote. Harold Meyerson explains, and examines the contest now underway in Nevada. Harold is Editor-at-Large of The American Prospect.

Also: John Berger, author of the classic “Ways of Seeing,” was more than a Marxist art critic. On the 100th anniversary of his birth, John Powers comments on his life and work—both of which were extraordinary. John is critic-at-large on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

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Data centers and AI, AI and data centers. We all know how pivotal these issues have become. But lots of the analysis on these topics has been coming from pundits who are the farthest removed from them.

That’s why we wanted to speak with Ben Inskeep and Bryce Gustafson from Citizen Action Coalition. Bryce and Ben have been helping communities on the frontlines of data center fights in Indiana organize and stand up against Big Tech, and their on-the-ground insights—about what’s motivating the backlash, the potential for a broader political realignment, and more—are critical to understanding what’s actually going on right now.

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That’s why The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal thinks the Supreme Court should matter to everyone who cares about climate and environmental justice. The Court can block laws, limit the government’s ability to regulate polluters, and prevent communities from holding powerful companies accountable. In this episode of A People’s Climate, Shilpi Chhotray talks with Mystal about what happens when some of the biggest climate battles are being decided by a few unelected judges.

Mystal explains how the Supreme Court has changed, why its decisions have such far-reaching consequences for climate policy, and what recent cases like Loper Bright and Suncor Energy reveal about the stakes. He and Shilpi also discuss what can be done to change the Supreme Court, including stronger ethics rules, term limits, and expanding the number of justices.

Note: At the time of recording, Justice Samuel Alito had not recused himself from Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, which is discussed in this episode. On September 28, 2026, Alito recused himself from the case.

Key Topics

• The Supreme Court & climate: Why the Court has become such an important battleground over climate laws, environmental protections, and corporate accountability.
• The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court can block or change major climate policies through emergency rulings—without hearing full arguments or explanations.
• Loper Bright & the EPA: What overturning Chevron deference means for regulating polluters and protecting the environment.
• Fossil fuel accountability: What the Suncor Energy case could mean for efforts to hold oil and gas companies responsible for climate-related harms.
• Supreme Court ethics: Questions around conflicts of interest, financial ties, recusals, and the lack of a binding ethics code for the justices.
• Reforming the Court: What could be done to change the Supreme Court, including term limits, stronger ethics rules, and adding more justices.
• Climate & political power: Why understanding the courts is essential to understanding where climate policy gets made—and where it can be blocked.

Resources

• Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America by Elie Mystal 
• Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution by Elie Mystal
• Contempt of Court podcast hosted by Elie Mystal
• The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court

Credits

Presented by Counterstream Media and The Nation

Powered by Wildseeds Fund

Host: Shilpi Chhotray

Executive Producer: Mindy Ramaker 

Engineer: Dennis Maxwell

Project Manager: Asia Simms

Elie Mystal

Elie Mystal is The Nation's justice correspondent and a columnist; host of its legal podcast, Contempt of Court; and author of the weekly newsletter “Elie v. U.S.” He is also an Alfred Knobler Fellow at Type Media Center and the author of the New York Times best-sellers Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution and Bad Law: 10 Popular Laws That Are Ruining America.

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Derek has returned, but he keeps trying to get Danny to go to some seminar led by a charismatic “mentor” he encountered in his travels. In this week’s news: war breaks out in Ethiopia’s Tigray region (0:43); Flavio Bolsonaro wins the first round of Brazil’s presidential election as the right makes major gains (6:46); in Yemen, the government’s counteroffensive against Ansar Allah stalls (9:51), the group attacks airports in Saudi Arabia and Yemen (12:40), and Saudi Arabia seeks outside military support (13:42); the U.S. prepares to resume its war against Iran as the Islamic Republic intensifies attacks on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz (17:44); in Japan, a U.S. Marine’s arrest for alleged murder sparks protests against the American military presence on Okinawa (22:18); Sudan’s military advances in North Kordofan (25:20) and Sudanese military chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan rejects peace talks (28:06); in Mali, Tuareg rebels withdraw from Kidal as government forces retake the town (29:54); the U.S. and the WHO seek information about suspected plague cases at a Russian lab (29:54); Russian attacks across Ukraine kill at least 25 (32:57); Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez calls a snap election (35:00); the U.S. bombs another alleged drug boat in the Caribbean (37:12); and Trump creates a new AI task force called the Super Intelligence Force (38:12).

Note: Since recording, Trump has said that the U.S. will not attack Iran before the November midterm elections.

Watch a replay of last night’s livestream with journalist Michael Fox about Brazil’s elections.

Subscribe and check out our History of Modern Palestine series with Rashid Khalidi.

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Brazil’s renewable energy is being exploited to justify unnecessary data center construction. Laís Martins joins Paris Marx to discuss why the renewable energy sector is behind a rise in Brazilian data center development, how this is impacting communities, and the ways this greenwashing is redirecting funding away from more socially progressive projects.

Laís Martins is a technology reporter at The Intercept Brasil.

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Danny and Derek welcome back to the show Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University and author of Palestine: A Primer, to talk about changes in the regional and political landscape of Palestine since October 7. They discuss adapting The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine for a younger audience, the devastation of Gaza, Hamas’s October 7 strategy and its miscalculations, the Biden administration’s support for Israel, changes in the Middle East after the war with Iran, shifting American attitudes toward Israel and Palestine, the prospects for Palestinian resistance, and the destruction of Gaza’s cultural and historical heritage.

Be sure to grab a copy of Palestine: A Primer, an adaptation of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine aimed toward a younger audience.

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