Category Archives: Environment

Henry Giroux and Nate Bellinger

Today’s show is in two parts. First, longtime friend of Forthright Radio, scholar, public intellectual, McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest, and The Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy, Henry Giroux, joins us again to discuss many issues facing our nation and the world – from the increasing militarization of America at home and on the seas, to the young people he teaches who are rising to the challenges of becoming effective cultural producers in this era unlike any in human history.

In the last part of the show Nate Bellinger, Our Children’s Trust’s Supervising Senior Staff Attorney, shares with us about the latest in the recent federal district court decision that Federal District Dourt Judge Dana Christenson rendered on October 16, 2025, in the Lighthiser v Trump case, and their on-going legal efforts representing their youth plaintiffs suing for a livable climate.

The link to read the students’ Public Intellectuals Project essays Henry Giroux mentioned in our interview: https://publicintellectualsproject.humanities.mcmaster.ca

In the KZYX pledge drive show, we read this poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko:

Talk

You’re a brave man they tell me.
I’m not.
Courage has never been my quality.
Only I thought it disproportionate
so to degrade myself as others did.
No foundations trembled. My voice
no more than laughed at pompous falsity;
I did no more than write, never denounced,
I left out nothing I had thought about,
defended who deserved it, put a brand
on the untalented, the ersatz writers
(doing what anyhow had to be done).
And now they press to tell me that I’m brave.
How sharply our children will be ashamed
taking at last their vengeance for these horrors
remembering how in so strange a time
common integrity could look like courage.

by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Translated by Robin Milner-Galland and Peter Levi

Articles pertinent to these interviews:

Stephen Miller and the Making of the Fascist Subject https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/17/stephen-miller-and-the-making-of-the-fascist-subject/

Trump’s America: Echoes of a Fascist Past https://socialistproject.ca/2025/10/trumps-america-echoes-fascist-past/

Pedagogies of Repression: Ford, Trump and the War on Education https://socialistproject.ca/2025/09/pedagogies-of-repression/

Charlie Kirk’s Death Is a Symptom of a National Political Culture in Crisis https://truthout.org/articles/charlie-kirks-death-is-a-symptom-of-a-national-political-culture-in-crisis/

Trump’s Theater of Cruelty: Fascism’s Malignant Return https://www.laprogressive.com/immigration-reform/theater-of-cruelty

The Democratic Party: Architects of Cowardice, Accomplices to Fascism https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/08/the-democratic-party-architects-of-cowardice-accomplices-to-fascism/

The War on Memory: How Trump’s Cultural Erasure Threatens Democracy in the U.S. and Canada https://www.laprogressive.com/democracy/trumps-cultural-erasure-threatens-canadian-democracy

Plastic surgeons wrestle with requests for ‘Mar-a-Lago face’: ‘You’re going to look like Maleficent’ https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/18/mar-a-lago-face-plastic-surgery

Trump’s Warfare State: Domestic Terrorism and Spectacular Violence https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/29/domestic-terrorism-and-spectacularized-violence-in-trumps-warfare-state/

Resisting the Deadly Language of American Fascism https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/07/11/resisting-the-deadly-language-of-american-fascism/

A Broad Wave of Firings Followed Charlie Kirk’s Assassination https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/us/kirk-critics-fired-free-speech.html

New Trump Order Among ‘Scariest Things I’ve Seen in US Politics,’ Civil Rights Attorney Says https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-vigilante-portal

Kamala Harris Thinks Trump Is a “Communist.” That’s Insane. https://jacobin.com/2025/09/harris-newsom-trump-communist-oligarchy

‘An unworkable request:’ Federal judge dismisses climate lawsuit https://dailymontanan.com/2025/10/16/an-unworkable-request-federal-judge-dismisses-climate-lawsuit/

The Kids Who Sued Trump Just Lost Big in Court. Or Did They? https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/climate/climate-lawsuit-children-montana-trump-health.html

Judge Throws Out Children’s Lawsuit Against Trump’s Energy Policies https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/climate/montana-youth-trump-climate-lawsuit-dismissed.html

Young Activists Say 3 Trump Orders Violate Constitutional Rights https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/climate/lighthiser-trial-climate-trump.html?searchResultPosition=2

Young People Suing Trump Over Climate Have Their Day in Federal Court https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/climate/montana-lawsuit-trump-executive-orders-energy.html

Hawaii Settles With Young Plaintiffs in Climate Case https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/climate/hawaii-youth-climate-lawsuit.html

Youth Climate Activists Get Major Win in Montana Supreme Court https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/climate/held-montana-youth-climate-lawsuit.html

Michael Brownstein & Alex Madva SOMEBODY SHOULD DO SOMETHING: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change

Our guests today on this edition of Forthright Radio are co-authors of a new book, SOMEBODY SHOULD DO SOMETHING: HOW ANYONE CAN HELP CREATE SOCIAL CHANGE, published by MIT Press.

Michael Brownstein is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at John Jay College, as well as Professor of Philosophy at The Graduate Center at the City University of New York. He is the author of THE IMPLICIT MIND: Cognitive Architecture, the Self, and Ethics.

Alex Madva is Professor of Philosophy , Director of the California Center for Ethics and Policy, as well as Co-Director of the Digital Humanities Consortium at Cal Poly Pomona. He is a co-editor of An Introduction on Implicit Bias: Knowledge, justice, and the social mind.; and THE MOVEMENT FOR BLACK LIVES: Philosophical Perspectives.

Not joining us, but also co-author of SOMEBODY SHOULD DO SOMETHING is Daniel Kelly, Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University and author of YUCK! THE NATURE AND MORAL SIGNIFICANCE OF DISGUST.

They explore the question “Climate Change, racial injustice, systemic inequality – it’s all so huge – What difference can one person make?” They write, “We’re not wonks. We’re three philosophers frustrated by the wrong lessons we were taught about these problems.”

We spoke with them via Zoom on September 22, 2025.

Keep America Beautiful: The Crying Indian (1970) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0sxwGlTLWw

Keep America Beautiful – Crying Indian on Horseback https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_QGBWaD-A4

Controversial 1970s “Crying Indian” ad donated to the National Congress of American Indians https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfH72-SziMA

Climate activists gather in New York for ‘Sun Day’ solar energy and anti-billionaire rallies https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/22/sun-day-climate-new-york

Trump DoJ seeks to kill Vermont law that makes big oil pay for climate harm https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/17/trump-vermont-oil-climate-superfund-act

I have now been a journalist for 40 years. The forces ranged against my profession have never been so powerful https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/20/journalist-40-years-forces-profession-power

Political Violence Isn’t New. But Something About This Moment Is. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/magazine/tyler-robinson-political-violence.html

I Look at This Country and I See a Stranger by M. Gessen https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/opinion/trump-kirk-trans-people-russia.html

From Nazi Germany to Trump’s America: why strongmen rely on women at home https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/sep/21/fascism-women-homemaker-trad-wife

Judith Butler is being targeted by the US government. We must stand up https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/22/judith-butler-is-being-targeted-by-the-us-government-we-must-stand-up

Malcolm Harris WHAT’S LEFT: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis

On this edition of Forthright Radio our guest is journalist, author, activist and critic, Malcolm Harris.

After being arrested in the October 2011 Occupy Wall Street protest on the Brooklyn Bridge, his court case became “a significant focus of attention for its involvement of posts to social networking sites and legal arguments over who controls that material” as the prosecution sought to undermine his defense using his own Twitter posts which he had deleted.

His books include Kids These Days: The Making of Millennials; Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World; and most recently What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis, published in Spring, 2025 by Little, Brown.

We spoke with Malcolm Harris about his latest book, which includes a reference to Judi Bari, on July 21, 2025 via Zoom. He was very patient and kind, re-connecting after a couple of disruptive technical problems.

Articles, etc. pertinent to this interview:

Gil Duran on Trump, Tech, and “The Nerd Reich” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2W3tmCBEnE

What’s the Matter with Abundance? https://thebaffler.com/latest/whats-the-matter-with-abundance-harris

Kurdish leader Ocalan issues message from prison, urging PKK to disarm to make peace with Turkey https://apnews.com/article/turkey-pkk-ocalan-peace-talks-68decd55c35fa537f04b117bc9736128

Kurdish leader Ocalan told the PKK to disband, it did: Here’s what to know https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/13/kurdish-leader-ocalan-told-the-pkk-to-disband-it-did-heres-what-to-know

Trump fossil-fuel push setting back green progress decades, critics warn https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/20/trump-energy-environment-agenda

The Revolutionary and Radical Tenderness of Andrea Gibson https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/opinion/andrea-gibson-poetry.html

Andrea Gibson – Homesick: A Plea For Our Planet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsmKDa2qQ-w&list=RDJsmKDa2qQ-w&start_radio=1

Andrea Gibson – Say Yes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfh3z55AL9s

Andrea Gibson MAGA HAT IN THE CHEMO ROOM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCX-0zJTEbk&list=RDWCX-0zJTEbk&start_radio=1

Andrea Gibson – Living Proof https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KADJJ4W9p3c

When It Comes to Undermining America, We Have a Winner https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/trump-authoritarianism-republican-party-democracy.html

Has America learned anything from the George Floyd uprisings? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/13/has-america-learned-anything-from-the-george-floyd-uprisings

Nearly 300 pages of Atlanta’s ‘Cop City’ records released after first-of-its-kind ruling https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/20/atlanta-police-foundation-cop-city-records

Is Decarbonization Dead? https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-jesse-jenkins-jane-flegal.html

‘We were heard’: the Pacific students who took their climate fight to the ICJ – and won https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/25/pacific-students-who-won-climate-case-icj-international-court-of-justice-hague

Caribbean leaders hail ICJ climate ruling as ‘historic’ win for small island states https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/25/caribbean-leaders-hail-icj-climate-ruling-as-historic-win-for-small-island-states

Anand Pandian SOMETHING BETWEEN US: The Everyday Walls and How to Take Them Down

Anand Pandian is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, with a joint appointment in Earth & Planetary Sciences.

His books include A Possible Anthropology: Methods for Uneasy Times, and Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life and How to Take Them Down, published in May, 2025 by Stanford University Press.

He has written that he sees these books as chapters in an ongoing anthropology of the open mind, a mind open to the differences and uncertainties of a wider world, committed to the significance of transformative encounters and relations. Openness of mind, he believes, is a necessary foundation for environmental ethics, the cultivation of ecological sensibility, the pursuit of livable relations with the natural world, a critical resource for the ecological trials of our time.
He serves as a curator of the Ecological Design Collective, a community for radical ecological imagination and collaboration.

We spoke with Anand Pandian on July 7, 2025 via FaceTime from his home in Baltimore, MD.

Articles pertinent to our conversation:

I crisscrossed America to talk to people whose views I disagreed with. I now have one certainty https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/jun/01/united-states-polarization

What I learned from an unlikely friendship with an anti-masker https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/aug/19/anti-masker-unlikely-friendship

New Mexico sues US air force over Pfas pollution from military base https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/10/new-mexico-us-air-force-pfas

Landmark US study reveals sewage sludge and wastewater plants tied to Pfas pollution https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/04/pfas-pollution-sewage-wastewater

Trump administration yanks $15m in research into Pfas on US farms: ‘not just stupid, it’s evil’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/11/trump-pfas-research-funding-farms

‘Alligator Auschwitz’: Nickname for new ICE facility renews debate over Nazi comparisons https://www.timesofisrael.com/alligator-auschwitz-nickname-for-new-ice-facility-renews-debate-over-nazi-comparisons/

Vince Beiser POWER METAL: THE RACE FOR THE RESOURCES THAT WILL SHAPE THE FUTURE

Lately I have been thinking a lot about ecologist and one time presidential candidate, Barry Commoner, and his Four Laws of Ecology, which he enumerated in his 1971 book, THE CLOSING CIRCLE. They are:

Everything is connected to everything else. There is only one Ecosphere for all living organisms, and what affects one affects all.
Everything must go somewhere. There is no “waste” in Nature, and there is no “away” to which things can be thrown.
Nature knows best. Humankind has fashioned technology to improve upon Nature, but such change in a natural system is likely to be detrimental to that system.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Exploitation of Nature will inevitably involve the conversion of resources from useful to useless forms.

Our guest on this edition of Forthright Radio, award winning author and journalist, Vince Beiser, begins his latest book, POWER METAL: THE RACE FOR THE RESOURCES THAT WILL SHAPE THE FUTURE, with the statement, “There is no such thing as clean energy,” so I thought it would be good to find out more about his reporting from “over 100 countries, states, provinces, kingdoms, occupied territories, no man’s lands and disaster zones. He has exposed conditions in California’s harshest prisons, trained with US Army soldiers, ridden with the first responders to natural disasters, and hunted down other stories from around the world.”

His earlier book, The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization, was a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. As well as A California Book Award. He has written for the Oakland Tribune, The LA Times, Village Voice, The Nation and Rolling Stone, as well as being the former senior editor of Mother Jones. We spoke with Vince Beiser from his home in Vancouver, British Columbia, via Skype.

POWER METAL: THE RACE FOR THE RESOURCES THAT WILL SHAPE THE FUTURE is published by Riverhead Books. Vince Beiser also writes on Substack, which you can access here: https://powermetal.substack.com

Due to time limitations, we were not able to discuss his chapter, “New Lives for Old Things,” on the Right to Repair movement. In it he writes about a couple of Cal Poly Tech students, who became so incensed at products designed to preclude owners from repairing them that they created a website iFixit, which hosts a free online repository of more than 103,000 do it yourself repair manuals for some 54,000 separate products. Here is a link: https://www.ifixit.com/

During the broadcast, I referred to the recent 5-2 Montana Supreme Court opinion, which upheld a permit the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation issued to Tintina Montana Incorporated (now Sandfire Resources) to manipulate approximately 250 millions gallons of groundwater in pursuit of a 14 million-ton copper deposit in Meagher County, and which environmentalists fear will endanger the pristine Smith River. I misspoke, mentioning the transnational Rio Tinto mining company instead of Tintina Montana Incorporated.

Montana Supreme Court upholds Tintina’s copper mine permit https://montanafreepress.org/2025/01/02/montana-supreme-court-upholds-tintinas-copper-mine-permit/

Other articles pertinent to this interview:

A Toxic Pit Could Be a Gold Mine for Rare-Earth Elements https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/science/berkeley-mine-pit-rare-earths.html

Playing gods with the cradle of life’: French Polynesia’s president issues warning over deep-sea mining https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/01/french-polynesia-deep-sea-mining-pacific-warning-president-moetai-brotherson

The Surprisingly Lucrative Business of Recycled E-Waste https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-surprisingly-lucrative-business-of-recycled-e-waste?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Revealed: US hazardous waste is sent to Mexico – where a ‘toxic cocktail’ of pollution emerges https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/jan/14/monterrey-mexico-steel-us-toxic-waste

‘Live sick or flee’: pollution fears for El Salvador’s rivers as mining ban lifted https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jan/01/el-salvador-environment-rivers-water-pollution-mining-ban-repealed-authoritarian-nayib-bukele-protest

‘The last drops of our water’: how a mine left some of Peru’s poorest high and dry https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/04/the-last-drops-of-our-water-how-a-mine-left-some-of-perus-poorest-high-and-dry

‘This river is doomed’: Peru’s gold rush threatens waterways and the people who depend on them https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/dec/22/illicit-gold-mining-loreto-peru-indigenous-peoples-fight-protect-amazon-rivers

Thailand bans imports of plastic waste to curb toxic pollution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/07/thailand-bans-imports-plastic-waste-curb-toxic-pollution

A dedicated cyclist and activist hails a program aimed at reducing car traffic. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/06/nyregion/congestion-pricing-nyc-new-jersey#a-dedicated-cyclist-and-activist-hails-a-program-aimed-at-reducing-car-traffic

Roman Empire’s use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/jan/06/roman-empires-use-of-lead-lowered-iq-levels-across-europe-study-finds

Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM-wSKFBpo

Melissa Hornbein & Anne Hedges: MT Supreme Court Ruling Upholds Held Verdict

On December 18, 2024 in a 6-1 ruling, The Montana Supreme Court upheld District Court Judge Kathy Seeley’s verdict in favor of the 16 Youth Plaintiffs in the Held v State of Montana case. They had sued the state for violations of their rights to a clean and healthful environment under the Montana State Constitution.

Melissa Hornbein Western Environmental Law Center

After the ruling, I invited Western Environmental Law Center attorney, Melissa Hornbein, a member of the plaintiffs’ legal team, and Anne Hedges of the Montana Environmental Information Center, whose lawsuits over the decades were cited by Chief Justice Mike McGrath’s opinion, and who had been an expert witness during the trail.

Anne Hedges Montana Environmental Information Center

Below are links to our coverage during the June 2023 trial, as well as other articles, etc. pertinent to the case and our interview.

Text of MT Chief Justice Mike McGrath’s Opinion with Justice Dirk Sandefur’s Concurring Opinion and Justice Jim Rice’s Dissent: https://dailymontanan.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Opinion-Published.pdf

Text of Helena District Court Judge Kathy Seeley’s 2023 Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law : https://mtclimatecase.flatheadbeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Findings-of-Fact-Conclusions-of-Law-and-Order.pdf

Testimonies of Witnesses from the June 2023 Trial:

Mae Nan Ellingson http://kgvm.org/show/held-mae-nan-ellingson-testimony-6-12-23/Ricki Held http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-ricki-held-testimony-6-12-23/Dr. Steven Running http://kgvm.org/show/held-dr-steve-running-testimony-6-12-23/Grace Gibson-Snyder http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-grace-testimony/Eva http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-eva-testimony-6-12-23/

Dr. Cathy Whitlock http://kgvm.org/show/held-dr-cathy-whitlock-testimony-6-13-23/Mica http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-mica-testimony-6-13-23/Dr. Daniel Fagre http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-dr-dan-fagre-6-13-23/Badger Busse http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-badge-testimony-6-13-23/

Dr. Lori Byron http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-dr-lori-byron-testimony-6-13-23/

Dr. Shane Doyle http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-shane-doyle-testimony-6-14-23/ Michael Durglo, Jr. http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-michael-durglo-jr/Sariel Sandoval http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-sariel-sandoval-testimony-6-14-23/

Taleah Hernández http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-taleah-hernandez-testimony-6-14-23/ Georgianna Fischer http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-georgianna-fischer-testimony-6-14-23

Kian Tanner http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-kian-tanner-testimony-6-15-23/

Anne Hedges http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-anne-hedges-testimony-6-15-23/

Claire Vlases http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-claire-vlases-testimony-6-15-23/

Peter Erickson http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-peter-erickson-testimony-6-15-23/

Mark Jacobson http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-mark-jacobson-testimony-6-16-23/

Olivia V. http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-olivia-v-testimony-6-16-23/

Dr. Lise Van Susteren http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-lise-van-susteren-testimony-6-16-23/

Lander Busse http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-lander-busse-testimony-6-16-23/

Christopher Dorrington & Sonja Nowakowski http://kgvm.org/show/held-v-state-of-montana-day-6-christopher-dorrington-sonja-nowakowski/

Sonja Nowakowski & Dr. Terry Anderson https://forthright.media/2023/06/20/held-v-state-of-montana-day-6-part-2-cross-examination-of-sonja-nowakowski-final-witness-dr-terry-anderson/

Closing Arguments https://forthright.media/2023/06/21/held-v-state-of-montana-day-7-closing-arguments/

Here are links to the Daily Audio Digests

Day 1 https://forthright.media/2023/06/13/held-v-state-of-montana-day-1-daily-digest/

Day 2 https://forthright.media/2023/06/14/held-v-state-of-montana-day-2-daily-digest/

Day 3 https://forthright.media/2023/06/15/held-v-state-of-montana-day-3-daily-digest/

Day 4 https://forthright.media/2023/06/16/held-v-state-of-montana-day-4-daily-audio-digest/

Day 4 (Peter Erickson) https://forthright.media/2023/06/18/held-v-state-of-montana-day-4-daily-digest-peter-erickson/

Day 5 https://forthright.media/2023/06/17/held-v-state-of-montana-day-5-daily-digest-dr-lise-van-susteren-lander-busse/

Day 5 (Dr. Mark Jacobson) https://forthright.media/2023/06/18/held-v-state-of-montana-day-5-daily-digest-dr-mark-jacobson/

Day 6 (Christopher Dorrington & Sonja Nowakowski) https://forthright.media/2023/06/20/held-v-state-of-montana-day-6-daily-digest-christopher-dorrington-sonja-nowakowski/

Day 6 (Dr. Terry Anderson) https://forthright.media/2023/06/20/held-v-state-of-montana-day-6-part-2-cross-examination-of-sonja-nowakowski-final-witness-dr-terry-anderson/

M. V. Ramana NUCLEAR IS NOT THE SOLUTION: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change

Professor M. V. Ramana, a physicist by training, is Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and the director of the graduate program at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He previously worked at the Nuclear Futures Laboratory and the Program on Science and Global Security, both at Princeton University. He is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Material, The International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group, and the team that produces the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report. His earlier books are The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India, and Bombing Bombay? Effects of Nuclear Weapons and a Case Study of a Hypothetical Explosion.

Increasingly alarmed by more and more reports of well respected climate scientists, such as James Hansen, who promote nuclear energy as an important part of responding to rapidly increasing climate catastrophes, we spoke with Professor Ramana via Skype on November 4, 2024 about his latest book, NUCLEAR IS NOT THE SOLUTION: THE FOLLY OF ATOMIC POWER IN THE AGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE, published by Verso.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

Meta signs deal with nuclear plant to power AI and datacenters for 20 years https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/03/meta-nuclear-power-ai

Dangerous Hype: Big Tech’s Nuclear Lies https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/11/01/big-techs-nuclear-lies/

Biden Tees Up 2 More Major Nuclear Power Wins for Trump https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-nuclear-pledge-climate-summit_n_67352fc1e4b0958bad3e15f4

The Cost of a Nuclear Arsenal https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/02/opinion/nuclear-arsenal.html

The Price https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/10/opinion/nuclear-weapons-us-price.html

Three Mile Island, Notorious in Nuclear Power’s Past, May Herald Its Future https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/business/energy-environment/three-mile-island-nuclear-energy.html

Big Fire Breaks Out at Nuclear Submarine Plant in Britain https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/world/europe/fire-nuclear-submarine-uk.html

Why even environmentalists are supporting nuclear power today https://www.npr.org/2022/08/30/1119904819/nuclear-power-environmentalists-california-germany-japan

Robot retrieves radioactive fuel sample from Fukushima nuclear reactor site https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/02/robot-retrieves-radioactive-fuel-sample-from-fukushima-nuclear-reactor

Japanese nuclear reactor which survived earthquake that badly damaged Fukushima power plant restarts https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/japanese-nuclear-reactor-which-survived-19870742.php

Donald Trump can’t stop global climate action. If we stick together, it’s the US that will lose out https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/07/donald-trump-cant-stop-global-climate-action-if-we-stick-together-its-the-us-that-will-lose-out

Trump voters want a revolution. It’s time for progressives to offer their own https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/07/trump-voters-revolution-politics-right

Our mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/07/us-progressive-election-trump-maga

Tsunehisa Katsumata, Top Executive in Power Plant Meltdown, Dies at 84 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/01/business/tsunehisa-katsumata-dead.html

Richard A. Fineberg, Relentless Skeptic of Alaska Pipeline, Dies at 83 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/01/climate/richard-a-fineberg-dead.html

Yael Bridge THE BIG SCARY “S” WORD & Lois Lipman FIRST WE BOMBED NEW MEXICO https://forthright.media/2024/05/24/yael-bridge-the-big-scary-s-word-lois-lipman-first-we-bombed-new-mexico/

Timothy Winegard THE HORSE: A GALLOPING HISTORY OF HUMANITY

In this episode we share our interview with best selling author and Colorado Mesa University History Professor, Timothy Winegard. His latest book, THE HORSE: A GALLOPING HISTORY OF HUMANITY, is being published by Dutton on July 30, 2024. His five earlier books include THE MOSQUITO: A HUMAN HISTORY OF OUR DEADLIEST PREDATOR; THE FIRST WORLD OIL WAR; and FOR KING AND KANATA: CANADIAN INDIANS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR.

We spoke with Professor Winegard about his fascinating book, THE HORSE: A GALLOPING HISTORY OF HUMANITY, on July 24, 2024, but a warning: the past two weeks since our most recent Forthright Radio had been characterized by technical breakdowns on several fronts. Without going into too many details, our Forthright Radio email address of many years became completely inaccessible on July 10th. Since July 12th, the computer had been elsewhere being worked on in the hope of retrieving the email information from it, but without success. Mere hours before our interview was scheduled,we got the computer back, but software we had been using for years, and which had been working when the computer was relinquished, no longer worked.

The reason we’re sharing this is because the audio software with which we record interviews was malfunctioning. We could hear and record Professor Winegard, but he couldn’t hear us, nor would the equipment record us. So, we had to do the interview recording him via Skype, and his listening to our questions via our ancient, failing land line phone. Bad as the audio quality of our questions is, Professor Winegard’s voice is of the quality you have come to expect. We are especially grateful to him for his patience and willingness to engage under such conditions.

The good news is that after our interview, the problems were located and remediated, so with any luck, this won’t happen again.

As for the Forthright Radio email address, that is sadly gone, never to return. However, we can still be contacted via the program’s website forthright.media contact page.

The Return of the Ojibwe Pony, the Midwest’s Native Horse https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/return-of-the-ojibwe-pony-the-midwests-native-horse?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us