KPFA - Terra Verde

Greenpeace International activists protest around a specialized offshore drilling vessel currently collecting data for The Metals Company, which plans to file the world’s first application to mine the seabed in the Pacific Ocean. Photo by Martin Katz / Greenpeace. Thousands of meters below the ocean surface, there’s a whole world we’ve only just begun to understand. There are massive underwater mountains, hydrothermal vents spewing piping hot water, and bioluminescent creatures that offer pockets of light in an otherwise pitch-black ecosystem. There are also trillions of dollars worth of minerals like copper, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, minerals that are increasingly in demand for green technologies like the lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars. These minerals have landed certain seabed regions on the radar of a nascent deep-sea mining industry. That industry includes The Metals Company, which is currently conducting exploratory work in a part of the Pacific known as the Clarion Clipperton zone and which hopes to begin commercial mining activities in 2025, despite growing concern by scientists and environmental advocates about the threats such mining poses. Given those threats, last week, Greenpeace activists began a protest at a ship the company is using to conduct research, boarding the ship and using kayaks to thwart equipment use. Arlo Hemphill, project lead for Ocean Sanctuaries and Stop Deep Sea Mining with Greenpeace USA, joins Terra Verde host and Earth Island Journal managing editor Zoe Loftus-Farren to discuss the risks of deep-sea mining, the status of international seabed mining regulations, the ongoing protest in the Pacific, and more. The post Deep-Sea Mining Standoff in the Pacific appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly public affairs show that delivers news and views about the most important environmental issues in California and globally. The post Terra Verde – November 24, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly public affairs show that delivers news and views about the most important environmental issues in California and globally. The post Terra Verde – November 17, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

Louisiana Pacific once ran a lumber mill on the Tuolumne County site where Golden State Natural Resources wants to construct a 300,000 tons a year wood pellet manufacturing plant. (Photo credit: Gary Hughes) For this episode Terra Verde is in the field with Matt Holmes, strategy director with the California Environmental Justice Coalition. In the interview Matt describes taking a close look at the site of a proposed large-scale wood pellet manufacturing facility in Tuolumne County. The episode explores the environmental impacts, public health risks and social justice legacies of an extractive forest product industry model in California. The post Spotlight on Environmental Justice Implications of California Wood Pellet Export Scheme appeared first on KPFA.

Roads fragment ecosystems. They cut off migratory pathways of animals like deer, cougars, and even salmon, they separate animals populations and drain their gene pool. They make it difficult for them to find food and shelter and even mates. Photo by Matteo Botta/Pexels For most of us, roads are a symbol of journeys, of freedom, adventure, opportunity, or more practically speaking, as a means of getting from point A to B. But the 40 million miles of roads that wrap around this Earth have a huge impact on the other than human world. Not only do they pollute our soils and waters and degrade habitats, they kill hundreds of millions of animals world over. In the United States alone, one million animals are killed by cars every day. Earth Island Journal editor and Terra Verde host Maureen Nandini Mitra discusses the impact of our massive network of roads on wildlife and humans and how we can reconfigure our roadways to be a more benign presence on the land with conservation journalist Ben Goldfarb, author of the new book Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet and Beth Pratt, California regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation and director of The Wildlife Crossing Fund, who has played a pivotal role in realizing the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing — an unprecedented overpass that would allow wildlife of the Santa Monica mountains to safely cross a dangerous 10-lane stretch of highway 101 in Los Angeles. The post Rethinking Roads: How wildlife crossings can help address the threat roadways pose to animals appeared first on KPFA.

If the project is approved, the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo (pictured) would produce more than a billion gallons per year of biofuel products, making it one of the largest biofuel refineries in the world. Photo by Thomas Hawk. Earlier this month, a Contra Costa County Superior Court ordered the oil company, Phillips 66 to put on hold its Rodeo refinery’s transition from processing crude oil to producing biofuels, until the county had addressed major environmental flaws in its environmental analysis of the project. The court ruling was in response to one of two lawsuits filed by environmental groups in 2022, challenging Contra Costa County’s approval of two proposed biofuel refinery conversions — the Phillips 66 one in Rodeo that would produce more than a billion gallons per year of biofuel products, making it one of the largest biofuel refineries in the world, and the Marathon-Tesoro refinery in nearby Martinez that could eventually produce more than 700,000 gallons per year of biofuel products. To understand what lies ahead in the legal battle against these two projects, as well at the local and global implications of California’s push toward biofuels, Earth Island Journal editor and Terra Verde host Maureen Nandini Mitra talks with Shana Lazerow, legal director of Communities for a Better Environment, which, along with the Center for Biological Diversity, is suing the county over the two projects, Ben Clark a student attorney from the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic, which is representing the litigants in court, and Stephanie Safdi, a supervising attorney and lecturer at the law clinic. NOTE: The revised EIR for the Phillips 66 Rodeo Renewed Project is currently open for public comment. The post Challenging the Bay Area Biofuel Refinery Projects appeared first on KPFA.

Muskan Walia and Angelina Xu, two young environmental leaders who were recently recognized for their accomplishments by the 2023 Brower Youth Awards, join Terra Verde host Fiona McLeod to discuss their work organizing their schools’ transition to clean energy and zero food waste. The post Youth Activists are Leading the Way to Sustainable Schools appeared first on KPFA.

Solar geoengineering presents a whole host of new risks and threats to communities and the environment. Foto Murray Cooper. Terra Verde is joined for this episode by Dr Carl Schleussner, the Head of Science at Climate Analytics. After giving an update on the current state of global climate politics Dr Schleussner takes the time to describe to listeners the recent release of a report by a little known high level climate lobby called The Overshoot Commission, which offers an alarming narrative promoting solar geoengineering as a response to climate change. The post Global Climate Politics and the Dangers of Solar Geoengineering appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly public affairs show that delivers news and views about the most important environmental issues in California and globally. The post Terra Verde – October 6, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly public affairs show that delivers news and views about the most important environmental issues in California and globally. The post Terra Verde – September 29, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly public affairs show that delivers news and views about the most important environmental issues in California and globally. The post Terra Verde – September 22, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

Artist Shane Grammar painted this mural in a building burned by the 2021 Dixie Fire in Greenville California. Photo by Harold Litwiler. Over the past year, several property insurance companies have pulled out or scaled back coverage in the Golden State in the face of growing risks from catastrophic, climate change-charged wildfires. Other climate vulnerable states like flood-prone Florida and Louisiana too, have experienced insurer pull-outs.But it isn’t just insurance companies that are pulling out. Other financial institutions like banks, too, are beginning to increase prices or withdraw services altogether from regions they perceive to be at high environmental risk. This emerging phenomenon in the financial services industry, known as bluelining, is expected to impact marginalized communities the worst and deepen existing economic and racial inequities. To understand this new environmental justice issue and learn about the ways we can address it, Earth Island Journal editor and Terra Verde host Maureen Nandini Mitra talks with two climate finance strategists — Monica Palmeira of the Oakland-based Greenlining Institute, who co-authored a report called Bluelining: Climate Financial Discrimination on the Horizon, and Caroline Nagy, senior policy counsel for Housing, Corporate Power, and Climate Justice at Americans for Financial Reform. The post Bluelining – Tackling an Emerging Climate Justice Issue appeared first on KPFA.

Youth plaintiffs arrive at the courthouse during the Held v. Montana trial. Photo by Robin Loznak / Our Children’s Trust. This summer, the climate movement celebrated a landmark win. Sixteen young people, who sued the state of Montana back in 2020 for promoting fossil fuels, prevailed in their lawsuit against the state, enjoying what has been described as a sweeping win. Their case was the first constitutional climate case and first youth climate case to go to trial in the United States. It rested on several constitutional guarantees, including the plaintiffs’ rights to equal protection, liberty, health and safety, and notably, to a clean and healthy environment. That last one is a relatively unique constitutional protection: Montana is one of only three states in the country with a so-called green amendment, putting the right to a clean and healthful environment on par with other fundamental rights in the state. But a growing movement seeks to embed similar rights in state constitutions across the country. Maya van Rossum, founder of Green Amendments for the Generations, joins Earth Island Journal Managing Editor Zoe Loftus-Farren to discuss the green amendment movement, the Held case, and why self-executing constitutional environmental rights could be an especially powerful tool for climate activists. The post The Case for Constitutional Green Amendments appeared first on KPFA.

The Montezuma NorCal Carbon Sequestration Hub imagines a new carbon dioxide pipeline system in the Bay Area. Terra Verde is joined by guests Dr Marjaneh Moini of PSR-SF and Kathy Kerridge of 350 Bay Area Action to discuss the public health risks and environmental concerns arising from an emerging proposal to establish a carbon capture and sequestration injection site at Montezuma Hills in Solano County to ostensibly address carbon pollution from the electricity generating facilities, hydrogen plants and refineries operating in the San Francisco Bay Delta area. The post Major Carbon Capture and Sequestration Project Unveiled for SF Bay Delta Region appeared first on KPFA.

In Richmond, California, fenceline communities near the Chevron oil refinery are impacted daily by the fossil fuel industry’s influence over local politics and the economy, as well as by the environmental and health risks of living in an oil town. But in the face of industry negligence, pollution, food insecurity, and more, community activists in Richmond have stepped up to fight for the place they call home. On this episode of Terra Verde, Doria Robinson, Executive Director of Urban Tilth, and Madeline Ostrander, author of the new book At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth, join host Fiona McLeod to discuss how community members in Richmond are transforming local food systems through urban farms, holding oil companies and elected officials accountable, and building a blueprint for a just transition away from fossil fuels. The post Growing Food in an Oil Town appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly public affairs show that delivers news and views about the most important environmental issues in California and globally. The post Terra Verde – August 18, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

Amid this summer’s blistering heat waves, historic floods, and devastating wildfires, it’s impossible to ignore the signs of climate change all around us. These extreme weather events can be catastrophic, both for human life and for property. And when it comes to the property side of things, the insurance industry is taking note: Over the past few months, several private insurers have limited coverage in higher risk states like California and Florida. Sean Hecht, managing attorney of Earthjustice’s California regional office and former co-Executive Director of UCLA Law School’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment joins Terra Verde host and Earth Island Journal Managing Editor Zoe Loftus-Farren to discuss disaster insurance in the age of climate change. The post Disaster Insurance on a Warming Planet appeared first on KPFA.

Redwood stave pipes were fundamental to the industrialization of American society This episode of Terra Verde features an interview with Greg King, the author of the recently published book The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals and Real Estate in the California Redwoods. The book explores the economic and ideological webs of control over our industrialized society — and how the raw resource of the ancient redwoods provided fundamental industrial products dedicated to the establishment of economic empire. The post Economic Empire and the Raw Resource of the California Redwoods appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly public affairs show that delivers news and views about the most important environmental issues in California and globally. The post Terra Verde – July 28, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly public affairs show that delivers news and views about the most important environmental issues in California and globally. The post Terra Verde – July 21, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.