Best of G&R: The Myth of California’s Climate Exceptionalism ft. Gary Graham Hughes w/ Biofuelwatch

Not unlike our (not so) esteemed leadership in Congress, Green and Red is out on a little summer recess.  We will be back with new episodes soon.

In the meantime here’s a “Best of Green and Red” episode from March 2022 on the energy sector’s false solutions agenda in California. Since false solutions like carbon capture and storage and nuclear are in the news so much lately (particularly hipster socialist Brooklyn media) and getting new life through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), we thought we’d share a little info on them.  But we’re now planning an episode on the IRA coming soon.

Climate and Punishment w/ journalist Alleen Brown

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. It’s about 25% of the world’s incarcerated population with over 2 million people held in federal, state and local jails. We’re also seeing unprecedented extreme climate disasters in the form of wildfires, heatwaves, drought, super-storms and more.

Listen in: https://apple.co/3M2uhJN

The aging infrastructure and failing logistics systems of many prisons are unprepared for the emerging climate crisis. The intersection of these two crises have created a pattern of human rights abuses across the country, and elected officials and their “regimes of cruelty” from California to Texas to Florida are only making matters worse. 

The Myth of California’s Climate Exceptionalism ft. Gary Graham Hughes w/ Biofuelwatch

pic via Dan Bacher

California prides itself on being more progressive than most on solving the issue of the climate crisis. Whether it’s phasing out the internal combustion engine or promises to take on the state’s many oil extraction sites. There is a notion of “climate exceptionalism” in California’s liberal ruling elite.

Listen in: https://apple.co/3uZ6ci4

But the California state government is captured by oil interests like many others. The pro-industry legislation and political action just comes in different forms.

Full Audio Episode: Climate, Forests and Corporate Power at COP26

New audio version of our recent coverage from Glasgow.

The UN Climate Summit in Glasgow (COP26) is in its second week. It’s been marked by large street protests, a “greenwash trade show” inside the meetings and empty promises by world leaders in the face of climate disaster. Green and Red focuses on movements and what’s happening in the streets, so we’ll be talking more with organizers and “outside voices” in Glasgow than you’ll hear from mainstream media channels.

Listen in: https://bit.ly/Glasgow4GandR

From Tunisia to Glasgow: Demanding A Phase Out of Polluters & Plastic at COP26 with Yasmine Ben Miloud

Our coverage at #COP26 in Glasgow continues. In our latest interview, Scott talks with Yasmine Ben Miloud with Zero Waste Tunisia.

They talk about the climate and zero waste movements in her home country of Tunisia. And then discuss her thoughts on COP 26, this includes efforts around breaking free from plastic, demanding that polluters be not allowed at the climate talks and the heavy corporate presence (particularly Unilever) at the climate talks.

“It’s a greenwash trade show”: Climate, Forests and Corporate Power at COP26 w/ Emma Rae Lierley

The United Nations climate summit goes into a second week in Glasgow, Scotland. Over the weekend, over 100,000 (led by youth, Indigenous and frontline delegations) marched demanding a just and stable climate as world leaders, corporate lobbyists, the non-profit industrial complex and others continued to meet and negotiate on critical climate issues.

Scott gets an update from Glasgow from Emma Rae Lierley (@EmmaRaeLierley) with Rainforest Action Network (@RAN). They discussed Saturday’s march and the invisibilization of Indigenous leadership and delegations by the media. They also discussed the (empty) pledge by world leaders to stop deforestation by 2030, the role of reactionary countries such as Brazil and Indonesia and the importance of Indigenous land and forest defenders in stopping deforestation and climate crises. Finally, they talked about corporations at COP26, public relations strategies, greenwashing and “Net Zero by 2050.”

Climate protests go hard in Glasgow at COP26 with Matt Leonard from Oil and Gas Action

This week, the United Nations climate talks (or COP26) commenced in Glasgow, Scotland.

We’re going to be talking to a variety of folks who are there. We get an update with Matt Leonard (@MattOakland) from the Oil and Gas Action Network (@oil_action). Matt’s been in Scotland for a couple of weeks supporting street actions targeting world leaders like Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, and Wall Street bankers wining and dining their way through the climate talks.

Mother Earth Doesn’t Negotiate. On the Rights of Nature w/ Pennie Opal Plant & Shannon Biggs

In Cochabamba Bolivia in 2011, tens of thousands were present on Mother  Earth Day as the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth was  declared in response to the “privatization” of nature by the corporate  state. This was in alignment with Indigenous worldviews that have  accelerated the development of rights of nature law.  Both Ecuador and Bolivia, as well as numerous local jurisdictions, have amended their  constitutions to include a “rights of nature.”

Listen in: https://bit.ly/NatureGandR

In this episode, we talk with Pennie Opal Plant (@PennieOpal) and  Shannon Biggs (@ShannonKBiggs), co-founders of Movement Rights  (@movementrights), about the growing movement around the rights of  nature. We discuss the legal, political and cultural aspects of the growing rights of nature movement. We also discuss the recent news that oil has begun to flow through  Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline after 8 years of resistance, the Indigenous  rights movement and the climate movements in the U.S. and globally.