Episodes

  • The New Carbon Majors Report + Swiss Elders Win Landmark Climate Case

    The New Carbon Majors Report + Swiss Elders Win Landmark Climate Case
    Apr 13 2024
    Lots of news lately on stories we've been following, so in today's episode: an update! The landmark Carbon Majors report has been updated with some surprising new data, and the European Court of Human Rights has sent down an historic ruling that will shape how EU legislators look at energy and climate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show more Show less
    42 mins
  • The Real Free Speech Threat: In Nigeria's Ogoniland, Protestors Still Fighting to Hold Oil Accompanies Accountable

    The Real Free Speech Threat: In Nigeria's Ogoniland, Protestors Still Fighting to Hold Oil Accompanies Accountable
    Mar 22 2024
    Shell announced in late 2023 that it would be shutting down all of its onshore activities in Nigeria and concentrating its efforts offshore. It leaves behind poisoned water, multiple political and economic crises, and a country that is measurably worse off today than when its oil industry began. Meanwhile the government continues to target environmental activists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show more Show less
    44 mins
  • The Real Free Speech Threat: Department of Homeland Security, the Manufactured "EcoTerrorist" Panic, and Cop City

    The Real Free Speech Threat: Department of Homeland Security, the Manufactured "EcoTerrorist" Panic, and Cop City
    Jan 31 2024
    The U.S. government's definition of what constitutes an "ecoterrorist" has long driven backlash against environmental activists and in recent years that definition has only broadened. Investigative reporter and Drilled senior editor Alleen Brown dug into this recently and found that the Department of Homeland Security had been warning officials in Atlanta about the threat posed by "Defend the Atlanta Forest" for months before police raided the forest, ultimately killing one protestor, and charging dozens more with domestic terrorism and racketeering. It was such an overreaction that even mainstream media covered it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show more Show less
    40 mins
  • The Real Free Speech Threat: Meet the UN's First Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders

    The Real Free Speech Threat: Meet the UN's First Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders
    Jan 31 2024
    In June 2022, Michel Forst became the first UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders. In that role he has spent the past year visiting various countries and speaking out about the increasingly onerous laws and aggressive tactics being used against climate protestors. Today he released a statement on the UK, saying he is "extremely worried" about "the increasingly severe crackdowns on environmental defenders in the United Kingdom, including in relation to the exercise of the right to peaceful protest." In this episode, our France reporter Anna Pujol-Mazzini talks to Forst about his new position, what it means, and what power he has to do something about the creeping crackdown on climate protest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 13 mins
  • The Real Free Speech Threat: How UK Courts Became the New Climate Protest Battleground

    The Real Free Speech Threat: How UK Courts Became the New Climate Protest Battleground
    Jan 28 2024
    About a decade after UK courts made history with the first "climate necessity" ruling in history, the UK government has passed new laws that not only restrict what protesters can do, but also how protesters are allowed to defend themselves in court. Some judges don't apply the new laws so strictly, but others have held people in contempt for just trying to explain themselves. In some courtrooms, the climate necessity defense has been effectively outlawed. How did that happen? And how did it happen so quickly? That's our story today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show more Show less
    34 mins
  • The Real Free Speech Threat: What Happened At Bayou Bridge? The Other End of the Dakota Access Pipeline

    The Real Free Speech Threat: What Happened At Bayou Bridge? The Other End of the Dakota Access Pipeline
    Jan 27 2024
    While protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation garnered international news coverage, at the southern end of the pipeline, cops moonlighting as pipeline security were suppressing free speech with impunity. In this episode, reporter Karen Savage tells us what happened at Bayou Bridge, and what lessons the story holds for the climate movement and for anyone who believes in the importance of democracy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show more Show less
    45 mins
  • The Real Free Speech Threat: Seven Years Later, an Environmental Impact Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline

    The Real Free Speech Threat: Seven Years Later, an Environmental Impact Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline
    Jan 27 2024
    In December 2023, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers closed the comment period on its draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,172-mile pipeline that’s been pumping 500,000 barrels of oil per day since May 2017. The pipeline runs from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Over the past six years, every court in the country has ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers did not study the pipeline’s environmental impact closely enough before approving the pipeline’s route. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has maintained all along that the project poses a serious threat to its drinking water. From April 2016 to February 2017 thousands of water protectors from all over the country (and beyond) joined them in protests and direct actions. The resistance at Standing Rock is often cited by the fossil fuel industry, police and politicians as the reason states need new anti-protest laws, while the backlash to that resistance is often cited by water protectors as the reason for PTSD, asthma, and in some cases lost eyes and limbs. Now, the Army Corps of Engineers says that removing the pipeline would be too damaging to the Missouri River and its surrounding ecosystems. The removal actions it describes in its EIS are the same actions taken to install the pipeline in the first place. The Army Corps suggests that removing the pipeline would be more environmentally harmful than allowing the oil to continue pumping under one of Standing Rock's primary drinking water sources. Nonetheless, this report—seven years late—represents one of the few pathways left to stop the pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe is advocating to seal the pipeline off, while some water protectors are advocating for the pipeline to be removed entirely. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show more Show less
    38 mins
  • The Real Free Speech Threat: The Fossil Fuel Industry Meets Indigenous Protest with "Redwashing" and Repression in Canada

    The Real Free Speech Threat: The Fossil Fuel Industry Meets Indigenous Protest with "Redwashing" and Repression in Canada
    Jan 27 2024
    As we resume our season focused on the global criminalization of climate protest, reporter Martha Troian brings us to Canada, where the Wet'suwet'en people have been fighting for years against a gas pipeline they never authorized on their territory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show more Show less
    44 mins