The Insect Crisis: Oliver Milman on Protecting Our Six-Legged Allies
Guardian environment reporter Oliver Milman, author of The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World, joins us to explain why we should be worried about insect declines and how we...
22 Mar 202251min
Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves: Jeff Sebo on Pandemics, Climate Change, and Animal Rights
I talk with philosopher Jeff Sebo about his new book Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves: Why Animals Matter for Pandemics, Climate Change, and Other Catastrophes. We discuss both moral and pragmatic rea...
15 Mar 20221h 7min
Animal, Vegetable, Junk: Mark Bittman on How Our Food System Got So Broken
Mark Bittman is the author of more than 30 books and nearly 200 New York Times op-eds, known both for his cooking tips and his searing critiques of industrial agriculture. This episode we talk about h...
8 Mar 202251min
Appleseed: Matt Bell on Doubting Techno-Optimists and Going Big with Wonder
Matt Bell's novel Appleseed has no shortage of urgent themes, and on this episode we talk about whether democracy is suited to the task of rapidly confronting climate change, the perilously seductive ...
1 Mar 20221h 10min
Resource Radicals: Thea Riofrancos on Democracy, Our Extractive Economy, and Indigenous Resistance
Thea Riofrancos, the author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador, talks about the challenges posed by resource extraction to indigenous sovereignty, the rights ...
22 Feb 20221h 20min
Civilization and Its Discontents: On Station Eleven, Planet of the Apes, and Kim Stanley Robinson
How do stories set in a post-apocalyptic future look back at our present world: are characters nostalgic for the affluence and convenience? Or do they look back in disgust, understanding that many of ...
15 Feb 202228min
Laura Jean McKay on Decentering Humans in Art and in Life
I talk with author Laura Jean McKay about her Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel The Animals in That Country, using fiction to give voice to other animals, and how literature can help us recognize t...
8 Feb 202253min
Sarah Lazare Makes a Novel Case for Publicly Owned Utilities
On this episode we talk with Sarah Lazare, who finished writing the novel Testimony after the passing of her father Peter Lazare, who had written the first draft. We discuss how the novel continues po...
1 Feb 202250min
