The Nation Podcasts

The real threat of AI is not the destruction of humanity, but rather replacing human labor with machines—that’s what Garrison Lovely argues. He’s the author of Obsolete: The AI Industry’s Trillion Dollar Race to Replace Us—and How to Stop It.

Also: Our right to peaceful protest is under assault. To save it, we need to “respect it, defend it, and more than anything – use it.” that’s what Annie Leonard says - she’s a longtime activist who spent 17 years with Greenpeace USA, then she helped launch the Jane Fonda Climate PAC. And she’s co-author of the new book, “Protest.”

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Staten Island is often referred to—by its inhabitants—as the Forgotten Borough of New York City. But who knew that in the 1990s, Staten Islanders literally tried to secede. Our guest this week, Ben Naddaff-Hafrey, is a journalist and senior producer for the Revisionist History podcast, and he’s created a brilliant new series called The Staten Island Problem that tells the history of this moment when New York City almost came apart.

Ben sees this story as an early example of the politics of resentment that dominates America today. To understand Staten Island is to understand the communities across our country that feel forgotten and disrespected, whose resentments Trump rode to power.

Oh, and obviously we also talk about how Staten Island—or Shaolin, as they call it—explains the Wu-Tang Clan, which totally fits perfectly well with the other themes and definitely isn’t just shoehorned in because it’s super interesting.

To get started on Ben’s series: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revisionist-history/id1119389968?i=1000776007729

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Many of Joe Biden’s closest advisors are now well-ensconced in the sinecures reserved for the elite, working at think tanks, academia, and major media outlets. Normally, they could expect to have future jobs when the Democrats retake the White House. But this cozy situation is being disrupted by ongoing reporting showing the extent of their complicity in the Gaza genocide and other US crimes in the Middle East. I spoke about this with Connor Echols, managing editor of Responsible Statecraft, who wrote an excellent article on the efforts to hold these officials accountable.

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“National security has always explicitly been about fossil fuels.”

The U.S. military is the world’s largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels—and one of the largest sources of environmental destruction. Yet its role in the climate crisis is rarely part of mainstream climate or environmental justice conversations. In this episode of A People’s Climate, host Shilpi Chhotray talks with independent journalist and documentary filmmaker Abby Martin about why meaningful climate action must confront militarism.

As military spending rises and wars continue to devastate communities and ecosystems, the connections between war, fossil fuels, and environmental destruction are becoming harder to ignore. Martin traces how military power has shaped the climate crisis, from the toxic legacy of U.S. military bases to the destruction of land and water in Hawaiʻi and the environmental costs of modern warfare. She and Shilpi also explore why climate and anti-war movements have so often operated separately—and what it could look like to build a broader movement capable of confronting both systems.

Key Topics

• War & fossil fuels: How fossil fuel extraction, U.S. military power, and global war are deeply intertwined.
• The environmental cost of war: The carbon emissions, toxic rubble, contaminated soil and water, and ecosystem destruction left behind by modern warfare.
• Military pollution: The toxic waste and contamination generated by U.S. military bases, including the devastating legacy of Camp Lejeune.
• Hawaiʻi & militarism: How colonization and militarization have turned Hawaiʻi into a military playground, with lasting impacts on Indigenous land, water, and communities—including the Red Hill fuel spill.
• RIMPAC: What Abby Martin witnessed at the world’s largest international maritime military exercise—and its impact on Hawaiʻi’s land and ocean ecosystems.
• War & wildlife: How military sonar, weapons testing, and munitions damage marine life and leave pollution that can persist for generations.
• Connecting movements: Why climate and anti-war movements need to break out of their silos to confront the systems driving both crises.
• Building power: How divestment, grassroots organizing, labor action, and community resistance can challenge militarism and corporate power.

Resources to Explore

• Earth’s Greatest Enemy
• The Empire Files
• Water Protectors Rise Up: Native Hawaiian resistance in the wake of the Red Hill disaster
• Collateral of the Permanent War: How 'national security' made communities and ecosystems disposable

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

Abby Martin

Abby Martin is an investigative journalist, filmmaker, and founder of The Empire Files, an independent video series exposing U.S. imperialism and its global consequences. She directed the widely acclaimed Gaza Fights for Freedom (2019) and Earth’s Greatest Enemy (2026), a groundbreaking investigation into the U.S. military’s devastating environmental footprint and its role in the global climate crisis. Her uncompromising style has made her a standard-bearer of advocacy journalism and one of the most prominent figures in alternative media.

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As Derek completes the final phase of his vision quest, Alex Jordan of the Always at War podcast fills in once more. In this week’s news: U.S.-Iran talks stall over the order of concessions (1:28); Gulf oil exports return to prewar levels (4:34); Netanyahu uses an attempted seizure of a FlyDubai flight to reinforce his agenda as an election approaches (11:15); in Iraq, the U.S. ends its counter-ISIS mission (16:06); Pete Hegseth launches Project Meridian to study the “future of warfare” (21:35); Trump hosts tech leaders who pledge “tremendous” self-regulation (24:49); British police arrest five men near RAF Fairford amid claims of Iranian involvement (27:23); U.S. intelligence says Saudi Arabia is keeping a nuclear weapons option open (30:06); Russia warns NATO of a nuclear response if Kaliningrad faces a blockade (33:09); Germany’s foreign minister meets Russia’s foreign minister as Russian attacks hit Ukraine’s energy grid (37:27); and Brazil prepares for a presidential election between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro (41:13).

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Tech companies are working with the fossil fuel industry to push unnecessary data center projects while misrepresenting the climate impact — and governments are letting it all happen. Ketan Joshi joins Paris Marx to discuss how the data center buildout is driving a surge in fossil fuel investment, and how it’s all playing out in Australia.

Ketan Joshi is a climate writer and data analyst based in Oslo working with climate and environmental groups.

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Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, answers the question, “What’s the Plan -- for the next No Kings Nationwide Day of Action?” This one shifts from mass protest in the streets to organizing for early voting – and preparing for whatever Trump does to disrupt or undermine the vote, the count, and the certification.

Also: The Supreme Court last Friday issued an order allowing states to use Trump’s SAVE database to purge their voter rolls of people the DHS considers ineligible – but it’s too late to apply to the midterms. Rick Hasen explains – he teaches law at UCLA and he’s Director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project and editor of the Election Law Blog.  

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Last week, we spoke with campaign manager Ben Shanahan about David Morales’s winning strategy in his successful campaign for Providence mayor. Today, we have a very different conversation with Jenn Steinfeld, David’s field director, about how they built the grassroots operation that knocked proportionately more doors than Zohran’s, without burning anyone out. It turns out campaigns really can run field the right way and win. Let’s do it more often!

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My Nation colleague Kate Wagner has written a brilliant critical essay on the Obama Center, which just opened in Chicago. I talk to her about how the history of presidential libraries, a now anachronistic form as well as the controversies surrounding the Obama Center’s displacement of public space and the dissatisfying way it memorializes the Obama presidency.

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A People’s Climate is back for Season 2. Host Shilpi Chhotray takes you inside the fight for climate and environmental justice with organizers, legal experts, filmmakers, and movement leaders challenging the corporate and political forces blocking real change — from Big Oil and militarism to over-policing and the Supreme Court. This is essential listening for anyone serious about building a mass climate movement.

New episodes every Saturday starting Oct 3, 2026.

Guests this season include:

• LaTricea Adams - Founder and CEO of Young, Gifted & Green
• Brea Baker - Writer, Activist and Author of ROOTED: The American Legacy of Land Theft & The Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership
• Dr. Hatem Bazian - Decolonial scholar, professor at UC Berkeley, author, and activist
• John Beard Jr. - Founder and CEO of the Port Arthur Community Action Network
• Nalleli Cobo - Environmental Activist and Co-Founder of South Central Youth Leadership Coalition
• Kamau Franklin - Founder of Community Movement Builders
• U.S. Representative Maxwell Alejandro Frost - Florida’s 10th Congressional District
• Abby Martin - Investigative journalist, Director of Earth’s Greatest Enemy, and founder of The Empire Files
• Elie Mystal - Justice Correspondent for The Nation
• Sean Sherman - Chef and Founder of Indígena by Owamni and North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems
• And more to be announced.

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

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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy