Podcast appearances and mentions of thea riofrancos

If access to care is so expensive, why are care workers so poorly paid? Historically, feminist discourses have looked at how ideology structures how we understand and value care work. However, in this discussion Alyssa Battistoni makes the argument that we need to update and develop these arguments, to provide a better answer to this question.  Alyssa Battistoni is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Barnard College. She is the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso 2019), with Kate Aronoff, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. Her next book is called Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature, and will be published with Princeton University Press in spring 2025. Her writing has appeared in publications such as New Left Review, The Nation, Dissent, n+1, Boston Review, and Jacobin. Her most recently published article, and the topic of this discussion, is titled Ideology at Work? Rethinking Reproduction, and appeared in American Political Science Review earlier this year.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Last week we celebrated our 100th episode of the show with another live event! James was joined by Co-Leader of the Green Party, Carla Denyer MP, and economists Faiza Shaheen, and Grace Blakeley, to break down Labour's Autumn Budget. A massive thank you to everyone who joined us at Space4! Apologies to anyone awaiting our ELECTION ECONOMICS episode with Thea Riofrancos - we've had to delay that recording but we'll be posting a review of the election results once they are in. As always you'll find that at patreon.com/macrodose.  Got a question or comment? Reach us at macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk For more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, go to planetbproductions.co.uk

Featuring Amna Akbar, Gabe Winant, and Thea Riofrancos on the American political conjuncture: the centrality of Palestine, the contradictions of left electoralism, renewed liberal militarism, the return of Obama-ism, the state of the labor and climate movements—and more. Recorded live at Socialism 2024 in Chicago. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigBuy Unbuild Walls at haymarketbooks.org Subscribe to Jacobin in print for $15/yr at bit.ly/digjacobin and Catalyst in print for $20/yr at bit.ly/digcatalyst Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Featuring Amna Akbar, Gabe Winant, and Thea Riofrancos on the American political conjuncture: the centrality of Palestine, the contradictions of left electoralism, renewed liberal militarism, the return of Obama-ism, the state of the labor and climate movements—and more. Recorded live at Socialism 2024 in Chicago. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Unbuild Walls at haymarketbooks.org Subscribe to Jacobin in print for $15/yr at bit.ly/digjacobin and Catalyst in print for $20/yr at bit.ly/digcatalyst

In 2019, mines expelled 100 billion tonnes of solid waste. Vast and destructive almost beyond imagination, mining is nevertheless essential to the green transition: without the minerals that we pull from the Earth, we cannot wean ourselves off fossil fuels. Thea Riofrancos is associate professor of political science at Providence College and an expert on […]

Dan just did a live Dig in London with Jeremy Corbyn and Laleh Khalili. It was part of a podcast doubleheader that included this recording of the economics podcast Macrodose featuring Asad Rehman, James Meadway, and Thea Riofrancos. The live Dig with Corbyn and Khalili on internationalist and anti-imperialist politics will be posted in a few days. Subscribe to Macrodose at linktr.ee/macrodosepodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or wherever you get podcasts Support Macrodose at patreon.com/Macrodose The Socialism Conference will be held in Chicago from Aug 30 - Sept 2. Learn more and register at socialismconference.org

Dan just did a live Dig in London with Jeremy Corbyn and Laleh Khalili. It was part of a podcast doubleheader that included this live episode of the economics podcast Macrodose featuring Asad Rehman, James Meadway, and Thea Riofrancos. The live Dig with Corbyn and Khalili on internationalist and anti-imperialist politics will be posted in a few days.Subscribe to Macrodose at linktr.ee/macrodosepodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or wherever you get podcasts Support Macrodose at patreon.com/MacrodoseThe Socialism Conference will be held in Chicago from Aug 30 - Sept 2. Learn more and register at socialismconference.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we are very excited to bring you a recording of the live event we hosted with the Verso and Dig podcasts last Friday at the Union Chapel in Islington.  The Union Chapel is the most beautiful venue and it was a joy to share the evening with so many of you. Thank you to Dalia Gebrial who chaired the event and our panelists James Meadway, Thea Riofrancos and Asad Rehman. A massive thank you to all of our existing Patreon subscribers, your support keeps the show running and we are very grateful. If you have the means and enjoy our work, head over to ⁠⁠patreon.com/Macrodose⁠⁠ and subscribe today. Find our socials, newsletter , merch and more here:⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠linktr.ee/macrodosepodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ We want to hear from you! Leave a comment or get in touch at ⁠⁠⁠⁠macrodose@planetbproductions.co.uk⁠⁠⁠⁠ For more about the work we do at Planet B Productions, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠planetbproductions.co.uk⁠⁠

On July 26th Macrodose is partnering with Verso Books and the Dig podcast for a special live event over at the Union Chapel in Islington, London.  Host Dalia Gebrial will be joined by political scientist Thea Riofrancos, climate justice activist Asad Rehman and anthropologist Jason Hickel, to talk about all things economic, from the era of neoliberalism to green colonialism, and the decline of the unipolar world.  And we'll be followed by a live cross-over recording of the Dig and Verso podcasts, where hosts Eleanor Penny and Daniel Denvir will be in conversation with academic and author Laleh Khalili and MP Jeremy Corbyn.  https://unionchapel.org.uk/venue/whats-on/versothe-dig-live-podcast-with-jeremy-corbyn-laleh-khalili

The fossil fuel based energy system has shaped capitalism and our geopolitical order. On the 50th year of TNI's existence, the State of Power report unveils the corporate and financial actors that underpin this order, the dangers of an unjust energy transition, lessons for movements of resistance, and the possibilities for transformative change. How can we build a Just energy transition in the age of corporate and imperial power?  In today's episode, a special accompaniment to the 12th Annual State of Power Report on energy, Nick Buxton speaks to three interesting people who have unique perspectives on this question. Timothy Mitchell is a political theorist, historian and professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University. In 2012, his book Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil retold the history of energy in the Middle East, showing how oil weakened democracy, fuelled militarism and empire and created a dangerous myth of infinite growth. Thea Riofrancos is an associate professor of political science at Providence College and a member of the Climate and Community Project, a left-wing think tank. She works primarily on the politics of extraction, particularly in Latin America and the US. Her upcoming book is Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism.  Ozzi Warwick is the chief education and research officer of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union of Trinidad and Tobago and the General Secretary of the national Joint Trade Union Movement. He is also a founding member of the Trade Unions for Energy Democracy South (TUED South), a new South-led trade union platform dedicated to a public approach to a just energy transition.  Nick Buxton is  TNI's Knowledge Hub Coordinator and founding editor of the State of Power report.

To say the modern world is dependent on materials we dig out of the ground is an understatement. From the lithium in your phone battery to the cup you're drinking your tea in, mining and mineral extraction play a vital part of how survive on earth. With the race to get off fossil fuels, and electrify our entire transport network kicking off, dependency on rare earth minerals like lithium  is going to increase, and the conditions of the people mining it brought ever to our attention. This week on the show Lucy and Andrew are  joined by  Thea Riofrancos, Professor at Providence College in the US and the author of "Resource Radicals" and "A Planet to Win".  They discuss how Lithium is a key resource when it comes to the transition away from fossil fuels, how mineral exploitation in South America has shaped the politics of the region and how Unions are now driving the just transition in the Americas.    LinksCheck out Thea's website herehttps://www.theariofrancos.com/The Lithium Problem (interview by Alyssa Battistoni). Dissent, 2023.https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-lithium-problemElectric vehicles alone won't take us to a decarbonized future. The Hill, 2023https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/3861795-electric-vehicles-alone-wont-take-us-to-a-decarbonized-future/Chile: White Gold Rush. Chatham House's The World Today, 2022 https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2022-06/chile-white-gold-rushShifting Mining from the Global South Misses the Point of Climate Justice. Foreign Policy, 2022 https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/07/renewable-energy-transition-critical-minerals-mining-onshoring-lithium-evs-climate-justice/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921ShoutoutFriend of the show Asad Rahman of War on Want, for his stirring speech at COP 28 on Palestine. Support the show

In this episode, Johanna Bozuwa of the Climate and Community Project shares a progressive vision for permitting reform and the factors that could speed up the US clean-energy buildout.(PDF transcript)(Active transcript)Text transcript:David RobertsTo achieve its Paris climate targets, the US is going to have to build out an enormous amount of clean energy and clean-energy infrastructure in coming years. But that buildout is going slowly — painfully, excruciatingly slowly — relative to the pace that is necessary.This has given rise to considerable debate on the left over what, exactly, is slowing things down. Much of that debate has come to focus on permitting, and more specifically, on permitting under the National Environmental Protection Act, or NEPA.A deal that would have put some restrictions on NEPA in exchange for reforms to transmission planning was effectively killed by progressives toward the end of the last congressional session, leading many people inside and outside the climate movement to accuse progressives of being The Problem. They are so attached to slowing down fossil fuel development with NEPA, the accusation goes, that they are willing to live with it slowing clean energy. And that's a bad trade.Progressives, not surprisingly, disagree! Their take on the whole permitting debate is summarized in a new paper from the Roosevelt Institute and the Climate and Community Project: “A Progressive Vision for Permitting Reform.”The title is slightly misleading, since one of the central points of the paper is that permitting under NEPA is only a small piece of the puzzle — there are many other factors that play a role in slowing clean energy, and many other reforms that could do more to speed it up. I called up one of the paper's co-authors, Johanna Bozuwa of the Climate and Community Project, to ask her about those other reforms, the larger political debate, and the progressive community's take on speed. All right, then. With no further ado, Johanna Bozuwa from the Climate and Community Project. Welcome to Volts, and thank you so much for coming.Johanna BozuwaThank you so much for having me, David.David RobertsThis is a hot topic, as you're well aware, permitting and the larger issues around it. And so, before we jump into specifics, I wanted to start with a few sort of broad, call them philosophical, questions.Johanna BozuwaPerfect.David RobertsAs you know, progressives have been under quite a bit of fire lately, not only from their typical opponents on the right and in the fossil fuel industry, but from a lot of sort of centrists and even a lot of sort of allies in the climate movement. For — I think the general idea is they are too attached to stopping fossil fuels and not yet supportive enough of building out renewable energy. And the mechanisms that they rely on to slow and stop fossil fuels are also slowing and stopping renewable energy. And so I think the general critique is that they ought to swing around and be more pro-building and loosen these requirements, et cetera, et cetera. I'm sure you've heard all this.Johanna BozuwaYes.David RobertsSo I guess I'd just start with this question. Is, do you think the progressive — and by the way, I meant to say this by way of a caveat, I'm going to be sort of using you as a spokesperson for progressivism, which I think we both realize is ridiculous.Johanna BozuwaRight, exactly.David RobertsProgressives are heterogeneous just like anybody else. There's no official progressive position. But as a crude, let's just say as a crude instrument here, we're going to ask you to speak for that perspective as you see it.Johanna BozuwaPerfect.David RobertsSo in your opinion, do you think progressives have taken it into their heart that things are moving too slowly and they desperately need to move faster?Johanna BozuwaMy answer to that question is that I think speed is progressive. You know, David, I don't need to tell this to you or any of the people that listen to this podcast or even progressives. We're dealing with the existential threat of the climate crisis and lives are on the line. And so I think that as progressives, we do need to take the speed question seriously. And I think what I would push back on is the fact that people have this myopic focus on permitting as the thing that's slowing everything down. And especially when I'm talking about permitting, NEPA permitting.David RobertsRight. We're going to definitely get to that.Johanna BozuwaYeah. And I just think that when it comes to this question of "Do progressives believe in speed?" I think that they actually very much do. And one of the things that I get frustrated with sometimes, when I hear these arguments like "Oh, progressives don't want to build anything," I think what progressives are interested in is building the right thing. And if we think about the United States and how our energy system rolls out today, we have a real issue that fossil fuels can expand at the same time as renewable energy is expanding. Like when it comes to fossil fuels, we can actually export that.We are now the biggest net exporter of LNG and crude oil. And I think that progressives are particularly aware that if we do the wrong thing on permitting then we're actually not only expanding renewable energy — and maybe poorly done renewable energy — but also the fossil fuel industry knows how to use these tools so much better than our renewable energy developers. And we are going to see just a massive expansion that we absolutely don't need right now. If we think the climate crisis matters.David RobertsWhat about the argument which goes like this: Fossil fuels are reaching sort of a structural peak and decline. Renewable energy is getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. It's on the rise. So if you just, all things being equal, make it easier to build everything across the board, renewable energy will win that race and so it's worth doing.Johanna BozuwaI just don't think that argument is true, look at how much power the fossil fuel industry still has in making these decisions. Like if we look at who is behind the recent push for permitting reform: It was largely the oil and gas industry. There's definitely some more nuance that's there, but they have significant power to move things and move them faster than the clean energy world. It's a question of when you're rolling back some of these bedrock environmental laws that the pie — it's not that the part of renewable energy in the pie is getting bigger. It's that even if we are getting more renewable energy, the pie itself has expanded so that we're having fossil fuels and renewables expanding at the same time.And it's not fully pushing out the power of the fossil fuel industry.David RobertsWell, then, how about this? And this is the final philosophical question before we get down to some nuts and bolts. Do you agree that there are going to be trade-offs as we pursue speed? This is, of course, the big discussion right now is that if you really double down on speed, if you really pursue speed with everything you've got, there are inevitably going to be some trade-offs, some other progressive values that have to take a backseat. And that might be other environmental impacts. It might be impacts on communities. It might be, you know, name it. It might be that we have to loosen up a little bit on those other things.Do you think that there are those trade-offs?Johanna BozuwaI think that there are some trade-offs. You, I think, had my colleague, Thea Riofrancos, on the pod some time ago talking about lithium extraction, right? And the fact that if we are going to decarbonize our transportation sector, it is going to take extraction in order to accomplish that. Right. And there are substantial and significant impacts that has in terms of water contamination in some of the most drought-impacted parts of the United States, that is something that we need to be thinking about. And I think what my hesitation is when it comes to so much of this conversation is that we're talking about deregulation as the way to do speed instead of actually talking about planning and coordination.And from my perspective, it's the planning and coordination that allows us to think through the decisions we're making with a far better sense of what's happening instead of a "get government out of the way, we'll figure it out" project that — it didn't really do great things for the planet. Are we going to do that again and trying to fix it? That seems like a silly mistake to make.David RobertsYeah, that's a really important distinction. I'm glad we get that out up front. Because I hate when we go from, "Yes, there are trade-offs" to therefore "Let it rip, let everything go." As Thea said on the podcast, we can acknowledge those trade-offs and thoughtfully try to minimize them through planning.Johanna BozuwaExactly.David RobertsSo let's start with this. As you say, there's this sort of what we're calling the permitting debate, quote unquote. Permitting debate is actually a bunch of debates and they're all kind of getting squished together under this notion of permitting. But in fact, there's a lot of things going on here other than permitting. So maybe talk just a little bit about all the disparate things that are now sort of getting lumped together under that rubric.Johanna BozuwaExactly. So I think just to put a point on it, often when people are talking about permitting, they're talking about this unfocused conversation about cutting red tape. But really what it comes down to is where the fight is right now in particular on the national stage is around NEPA. So the National Environmental Policy Act, but wrapped up into all of their arguments are all these other pieces that actually are maybe more of the problem than particularly NEPA. So, you know, four of them, just to start us off, obviously we do have NEPA. That's part of the permitting process.We have local and state zoning permits, approvals, things like that. You know, going to Georgia County to make sure that you can put something through. Then you have third, these contracts or arrangements that are actually between private organizations. David, I know you had folks talking about internet connection queues — that often is part of the permitting debate, but it's actually about who gets to go onto the transmission that's being built.David RobertsLet me pause there because I want to make a point that I'm not sure everybody understands and I'm not even sure we made it in that pod. But the ISOs, the ...Johanna BozuwaIndependent service operators. I know I always mess it up. RTOs. ISOs.David RobertsYes, I know. ISOs and RTOs. I could never call that to mind. But anyway, the ones who are sort of running the transmission systems and running these queues are not public organizations. Those are not state organizations. They are private consortia of transmission organizations and utilities and things like that. So it's not something that the state can come in and just directly change. I just think that's worth sort of putting on the record.Johanna BozuwaI think that's a really important point and I think we'll probably dig into this further. But the idea that and I think you talked about this on the pod last time, but there are so many different kind of private actors that are operating within the RTOs and ISOs with not actually a huge amount of oversight, as it currently stands.David RobertsYes, or transparency.Johanna BozuwaOr transparency.David RobertsOr accountability, really.Johanna BozuwaYeah, exactly. And it turns out if we're looking at what's really miring the buildout of renewable energy, a solid amount of it is right there. Is in the interconnection queues. I think it was Southwest PowerPool — takes like eight years sometimes to get the developer to get their project through. And those are for projects that already have their offtaker and have all their permitting in place. So it just feels quite misguided for us to spend all of this time talking about permitting when we could be actually diagnosing the problem —David RobertsAnd you said there was a fourth.Johanna Bozuwa— and there's a fourth. The fourth one, I would say, is just operation and construction permits, like some of the pollution discharge stuff that is at some of these more local levels. And those four don't even include some of the other things that stop things, which is like access to capital, utility squabbles, supply chain slowdowns, these whole host of other issues that are just being swept under the rug because it's very alluring to say, guess what? I have the one quick fix to make sure that renewable energy gets built in the United States.David RobertsAnd local NIMBYism. I'd throw that in.Johanna BozuwaYeah, yeah, local NIMBYism, absolutely. Add it to the pile, exactly. So and NEPA's not going to do things about local NIMBYism in the same way that's the local and state zoning stuff.David RobertsYeah, I think people really want, for obvious reasons, they're frustrated by everything going so slowly and everybody wants there to be sort of like something to cut the Gordian knot, sort of one, as you said, one weird trick. And that's, I think, why people are grasping onto NEPA because it seems like that's one big thing we can argue about and change. But as you say, the reasons here are very disparate. But let's just take a second to talk about NEPA. I go back and forth on this, but is it, do you think the progressive position that NEPA is okay "as is" and doesn't need any changes?Like, do you think there are problems with NEPA and how it's administered?Johanna BozuwaOkay. My feeling on this is that the case about NEPA is overstated, especially as we describe so many other things, even outside of the permitting process that matters. But if we're going to talk about NEPA, I think overall the projects are going through pretty quickly. There was a new study, actually, this month by, I think, David Adelman that did a really comprehensive look at wind and solar NEPA reviews over the past ten years, and he found that less than 5% of Wind and solar projects required. The EIS, like the Environmental Impact Statement, which is the one that takes the most time usually, can be two and a half years or whatever, but they're going through with categorical exclusions or some of these faster ways to move wind and solar projects through, or just projects in general.And he found that there was very little litigation involved, which is often like the dog whistle, I feel like, of some of these folks who are calling for permitting.David RobertsYeah, I was surprised when I looked at that study. It's a relatively low percentage of those projects that get litigated after they're done.Johanna BozuwaRight, exactly. And I think if I were to make any improvements to NEPA, the thing I would do is bulk up the administrative state. Jamie Gibbs Pleune wrote a kind of corresponding piece of research to our permitting report where she investigated and talked about NEPA in particular with Roosevelt. But she was looking at another paper and found of 40,000 NEPA decisions that the US Forest Service looked at, the biggest causes of delays were actually from a lack of experienced staff, budget instability, and honestly, delays from the applicants themselves not getting their stuff in on time. So I just feel as if we're going to do anything to make NEPA better, give the BLM, give US Forest Service, give EPA far more funds, training, staff empowerment that's going to actually move these projects even faster through the pipeline when they're actually moving relatively quickly.And these places have experienced chronic understaffing and lack of empowerment. So there is work to be done there. I don't want to understate that, but I think that it's a reasonable thing for us to accomplish without rolling back and applying a very neoliberal frame to how we get this job done.David RobertsYeah, I would say it does seem like NEPA has sprawled a bit since it was passed. Originally, it was supposed to be major projects that came under NEPA review, and the court basically decided that all projects were under NEPA review. And so there's just thousands and thousands now that just have these little sort of not very long delays because they get these categorical exemptions. But there's just a lot of — it's very sprawling, it seems like, and unfocused. This is one of those areas where I feel like there are procedures of the administrative state that could work better and more effectively.But at this point, liberals, they've just been under assault for so long. And liberals just know if you open this can of worms, if you open it up to review, there's just a pool of piranhas that want to go in and strip it bare. And so they just don't open it for review. Like, there's so many things like this. Like, if we could have a good faith process of actually trying to do what NEPA is supposed to do better than NEPA does it, I feel like, yeah, there's stuff we could improve, but Joe Manchin doesn't want to improve it.Johanna BozuwaWe don't want Joe Manchin in charge of what NEPA looks like and what's the more muscular version that takes into consideration the real-life climate impacts. Because I don't know when you're talking there, David, a thing that comes up for me is the reality that we will have more things happening on the ground. Like, let's say you put transmission in, we have a wildfire crisis. Now all of a sudden, the stakes are higher when it comes to these things like environmental review that are very material that I think also aren't talked about as much as they should be. And so, yeah, I can imagine things being shifted and changed within NEPA so that it works better for the current context.But I think that, as you describe it, could be a real political problem for us to do that type of work right now. And we have other mechanisms that can move us much more quickly in the interim. Like, is this really the thing we want to be spending our time on as progressives? The answer is no.David RobertsAnd I also think if you look at the reforms that were sort of ended up getting jammed through, like of all the thoughtful things you could do to NEPA to make it work better, just a sort of — page limit, like a page limit on reviews: Seems like it's such a blunt instrument. It's such a crude way of approaching this.Johanna BozuwaOh, and I think it's going to get them into serious trouble. If you want a thing that is going to increase litigation, try adding an arbitrary deadline and page limit to something with no administrative capacity.David RobertsOkay. We could do a whole pod on NEPA, but I don't want to get too — our whole point is it's not the sole or even main impediment here. So at a slightly more granular level, let's talk about what you think is actually slowing down clean energy infrastructure build out. And there's a few categories your report covers starting with transmission, which is, I think, the big one.Johanna BozuwaYeah, totally. And I would agree with you. I mean, transmission planning is kind of in shambles in this country. It's not up to the job.David RobertsYeah, I don't think literally anybody on any side of anything would disagree with you about that.Johanna BozuwaExactly. And I think there are a couple of reasons for that. One is that multistate transmission buildouts are incredibly hard to do in a federalized system. We just have so many different actors that are vying to hold on to their particular part of the market, especially with our vertically integrated utilities that don't have much interest in allowing other utilities into their service territory. And in deregulated states, utilities are kind of out of the picture for deciding where new generation is being built. So there's not a lot of efficiencies that are built into that. So we just get this really haphazard development, if development at all, of our transmission system, which I think is just quite a failure.There are so many clear opportunities to do much more clear planning around this.David RobertsYes. And then what about big large-scale renewable energy projects like big solar, wind, geothermal, what is in practice, slowing down their build out?Johanna BozuwaYeah, so I think that when it comes to some of these larger scale projects around solar or wind, you're running again into projects that aren't thinking strategically about where they're being placed. So if we're looking at the amount of land that we're going to need with the energy transition right. Wind and solar take more space up than one natural gas plant. And I think that there's just like a clear lack of land use planning when it comes to these larger scale projects when we could be doing it far better. Right. And thinking about what are the areas that make sense and are going to limit the amount of impact on our landscape and on communities and actually deploy it in those areas.And I actually think there are answers to that question.David RobertsWell, we're not to answers yet. We're dwelling on problems.Johanna BozuwaOkay, all right —David RobertsSo how does that slow down? I mean, what does that manifest as? How does that slow down the build out?Johanna BozuwaYeah, well, the way that that manifests is that you're putting big renewable energy projects in tension with things like agriculture. You're putting big renewable projects in tension with our biodiversity goals. And so those are the things that are going to potentially mire the development and deployment of these larger scale projects — in addition to getting them attached to the transmission and making sure that it's colocated with the transmission we need.David RobertsYes, the aforementioned interconnection queue issue, which alone is like, "That's a lot of years," which as you say, that's a lot of years tacked on the end of all the other stuff they have to go through. Like once they have to go through all that other stuff, then they get in the interconnection queue and wait and wither, etc. And then another thing you take on here is a big piece of the clean energy buildout, which I think a lot of people don't really think about as much, maybe don't enjoy thinking about as much, which is the sort of minerals and metals aspect of it. A big part of IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, is an attempt to onshore supply chains so that China does not dominate them.But that means onshoring some mines and some minerals processing which are not necessarily environmentally friendly, not necessarily things people like having in their backyard. So what's slowing those things down?Johanna BozuwaI guess I would say there are two pieces that are happening. One is just that this is a pretty new area and there are so many price fluctuations that are happening. There's all of these big mining companies that are shifting ownership, trying to figure out financing. Right? So there's a lot that's happening there. And mining companies are not the best known for having perfect environmental impact statements or anything like that, that's going to get them mired right. And then you add in the fact that as we talked about earlier, a lot of where these lithium reserves are is also in extremely — like the likelihood for drought is a lot higher if you're looking, for instance, at the Salton Sea in California or, you know, over in Nevada, these are places that we actually have to be extremely careful about. And also it just takes a really long time to build a mine like this isn't something that happens the next day. Right. It's like 10 to 15 years in the future type thing. So it is a longer time frame that's going to be even longer if we aren't thinking, again, about who is impacted, how they are going to be impacted by the mining itself. What is that going to do to air quality, water quality, all of these different things?It's a really big part of the permitting discussion, or of the transition discussion in particular that is being discounted in the United States.David RobertsAnd one more bit on problems, before we transition to recommendations. I noticed that one thing you don't get into a lot in the report is the expression of those state and local level permitting issues. And a lot of those I think, are tied to environmental review. And a lot — like, for instance, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is just sort of like legendarily at this point, a tool for local NIMBYs to stop things happening. Like we just read a story that was bouncing around Twitter a few days ago about these wealthy people — I forget what county they were in — but they were suing because someone had moved a playground closer to their house.They didn't like the sound of the kids playing and so they sued. And part of it was that the city had not done a proper environmental review under CEQA of moving the playground. And you hear stories like that all the time. Do you think you said that NEPA is not as big a problem as people say? Do you think state level environmental review is a serious problem, a serious barrier, at least in some places?Johanna BozuwaI think it just really depends on the place. And I think that's part of why as we were writing a national paper, being able to dig into the detail and differentiations between all of these different places seemed like a big haul for a small paper. So yeah, I think that there are these pieces at the local level, the zoning things, right? People are historic preservation boards that are saying like, "No rooftop solar because we don't like the look of it." Yeah, that's some BS in my mind and I think we do need to figure out how to manage that.And I think what this comes into conversation with is a little bit of like, what is the community review process? What does that look like and how do we manage that?David RobertsContemplating the variety and number of those instruments at the state and local level is really overwhelming and really does make the problem feel so intractable because it's just like, as you say in a federalist system, it's like every bit of reform is not just one bit, it's 50 bits. Every bit is 50 fights.Johanna BozuwaTotally agree. And I think that's why we get stuck in these gridlocks sometimes. And also when we get to solutions, I think there are some examples that we can draw on and utilize our little multi tool of ideas of how to move this forward.David RobertsFinal thing before that, because I forgot about this bit, but actually it's worth making a note that it's actually easier for fossil fuel infrastructure to get NEPA permits than it is for clean energy projects. It's something you note in the paper. If anything, NEPA is easier on these pipelines and stuff. Even though Joe Manchin is complaining ceaselessly about it.Johanna BozuwaYes, and I mean, I think that's why in particular, people who have been fighting the fossil fuel industry for so long, look to this group of folks, more center left folks, that are saying "Repeal NEPA, let's do it, we want to build." They're saying, "Oh my gosh. What you're doing by saying that is saying that the West Virginian that I have been fighting alongside is going to be decimated by this pipeline that's being passed now." So there are really high stakes and in a lot of the permitting process that we saw at the federal level, it also implicated the Mountain Valley pipeline.Right. And that type of infrastructure getting a pass when it couldn't even get some of its permits at the state level to just go forth is a really, I think, scary potential because that locks us into decades of extraction.David RobertsYeah, I feel like that was not covered well when this whole thing happened. You know, the Mountain Valley Pipeline: It's not that it was like stuck unfairly in a bureaucratic tangle. It just sort of straightforwardly was polluting and so it couldn't get the permits, the permits were rejected. It wasn't like stuck in some queue or something. It was just straightforwardly a polluting project that could not qualify under US law to go on. And it was just like jammed through. So I feel like the outrage of that didn't really penetrate partially because everybody's on this like "everything needs to go faster tip" and so they just kind of slotted it under there.But we don't want things that straightforwardly fail environmental review going forward do we?Johanna BozuwaExactly, like, I would like, that the Cuyahoga River does not catch on fire again. And that's the reason we have environmental review and NEPA. And also I would like it to be able to stop more fossil fuel infrastructure.David RobertsYeah, I know. And this is the other thing too, as though we're supposed to have some sort of content neutral opinions about permitting as such. I'm just like, "Well, I want more good stuff and less bad stuff. Can I have that opinion?"Johanna BozuwaExactly. That's so crucial too, where there are ways for us to stop permitting new fossil fuel infrastructure and permit the hell out of good renewable energy projects. That's a political possibility that Biden actually had signed up for and now is stepping back on.David RobertsYeah, I mean, it's politically tough, but let's be positive here. You have a lot of recommendations in here, all of which are juicy, all of which could probably have a podcast of their own on them. There's no way we can cover them all. But you sort of have your principles and recommendations grouped under three headings. And the first one, which I think is the one that is most directly germane to the speed question, is enabling more coordination and planning. And I think this is a huge thing. This is one of my soapboxes I get on all the time.I really want the climate movement to take this up is that we've had decades and decades of for lack of a better term, neoliberalism and this sort of instinctive free market stuff. And it's not like any major developed economy actually stops planning. What happens when you claim you're not planning and you claim you're being a free market is you just move planning behind closed doors or bury it in the tax code where no one can see it or understand what's happening. And then that results in whoever has the most power and money winning the planning fights.So I'm done with my soapbox. Let's talk about restoring our ability to do public, transparent, cooperative planning. Let's talk about a few of the items under here. And first is just land use planning. What do you mean by that and what would it look like?Johanna BozuwaSo, land use planning, as we talked about earlier, it turns out that one fossil fuel plant is a lot smaller than the types of assets that we need to build. That's just a reality of what we're working with. And so that necessitates far more land use planning to think about how do we get the most out of the least amount of space that is going to do the best for keeping the lights on. And so there are examples of how we can do this type of land planning. And one example I want to bring up actually is in California.So there was the Desert Renewable Energy Plan that was basically where states and federal agencies came together and they were looking at the Mojave and Colorado desert area. It's like 22 million acres.David RobertsVery sunny.Johanna BozuwaYeah, very sunny, exactly. Very sunny, very good for some solar. And what they did is that they coordinated a plan for this entire region so that it was prescreened for issues. So they said, okay, we're going to look at the biodiversity impacts of things being put here. We're going to look at the cultural or tribal impacts, the environmental potential impacts. And so after they did that kind of, what's called often like a programmatic study, that meant that the developers that came in to build the stuff there don't have to go through some more involved environmental impact assessment or study because it's already done.And so that meant that because they had done all of that work ahead of time, projects are getting approved so much faster. They're getting approved in less than ten months. And have, I think it's been now this zone has been around for about ten years and I don't think there is one litigation case. So that is just such a good example of land use planning where it's like thinking ahead of what we need and how we're going to do it. And that still does allow for private developers to come in, even though I might even argue that we could do even more planning and fill in the gaps with some public transmission or public renewable energy.But we can get into that later.David RobertsAnd we did an example from California, so I think now we're constitutionally obliged to do one from Texas too.Johanna BozuwaAbsolutely. Well, exactly. Thank you for setting me up so neatly, David, for the Competitive Renewable Energy Zones of Texas, which was such a success. So this is a very similar situation where the legislature directed the PUC, the Public Utilities Commission to plan where new generation and transmission was going to be located, routed, all of this. And so by doing so, they allowed for this proliferation of wind in Texas, a place where you might not expect a massive amount of wind to be. And I was reading a study the other day that said that in the past ten years, the CREZ line, so the Competitive Renewable Energy Zone, represents 23% of all new high voltage lines in the US.David RobertsGood grief.Johanna BozuwaRight?David RobertsYeah. They're actually building I mean, I don't know if people know this, they're actually building transmission in Texas. I'll just talk about how transmission never gets built. They're building it there because —Johanna BozuwaThey had a plan.David RobertsThey planned in advance. Yes, they had zones where it got approved and so you didn't have to then go there and do the entire like a transmission developer didn't have to go somewhere and then do the entire thing. Right. Do the entire review, do the entire land use review and the environmental review. They didn't have to start over every time that stuff was done in advance.Okay, point made. There more land use coordination and planning. That's the states doing it. But you could imagine the feds getting into that somewhat. You have these jurisdictional issues and federalism issues that are a bit of a tangle, but it does seem like the feds at the very least could do some informational, advisory planning and assessment on a bigger level, don't you think?Johanna BozuwaOh, absolutely. Actually, we do have a lot of private land in this country. Absolutely. But there is a lot of land that is owned by the federal government. So they're actually implicating a lot of this already. And it makes far more sense for an actor that has that kind of meso level understanding of what we need to build to be involved in those processes and be doing kind of a national assessment of where should those zones be. Like CREZ that's going to have all of these benefits and is going to allow for the most kind of efficient way for us to be deploying renewable energy while also taking into consideration these biodiversity, tribal nation relations and all of these things.That's a good role for the federal government to actually play.David RobertsOkay, we're going to pass quickly by two of these since I've done pods on them. But as you say, one is the interconnection process, which is probably the biggest thing right now, slowing down renewable energy getting built. I did a whole pod on that with RMI's Chaz Teplin a few weeks ago.Johanna BozuwaA fantastic one.David RobertsReally encourage everybody to go listen to that. There's a lot of recommendations in there for how to improve the interconnection process, how to improve things in batches. To return to a theme here, a lot of that has to do with just more and better planning on the ISO's parts.Once again, like, think in advance a little bit and you can skip some of this case by case stuff, but I encourage people to go listen to that pod. Another one, which we've touched on slightly, which I also did a pod on, is just and I think this is so important is just the capacity of the agencies that are doing these reviews. These are at the state level and at the federal level. These agencies have been cut to the bone. They're all, all understaffed, desperately behind, and that, of course, makes things go slower. So all these people who are whinging about reviews, if they're not talking about bulking up agency capacity, I just have trouble taking them seriously because that is the lowest hanging fruit you could do.But I did a whole pod on that several weeks ago about government capacity and about some of the provisions in the IRA that are meant to bulk up capacity at these agencies. It's just a matter of money and hiring. So we're going to check that one off the list. Let's talk a little bit about this next recommendation, which is about more publicly owned energy and transmission. What do you mean by that? What would that look like?Johanna BozuwaYeah, so this is kind of trying to answer the question of building where private companies will not, right? Like, we do have this problem of not having the long-range solution in the mind's eye, right? And we have this system in which there isn't a lot of this coordination that's in the mind's eye of a developer, right? Like, they're focused on their development, whereas the state government, federal government, has a little bit more of like, "Okay, what are we trying to accomplish? We are trying to handle the climate crisis. And that means we need to move as quickly as possible to deploy as much renewable energy as possible.And it turns out we actually do have some capacity and to actually build this ourselves." And we've done this in the past, admittedly, in a much less dense energy system. But the New Deal is a really good example of this, where the U.S. either directly financed or built itself a massive amount of transmission and energy infrastructure, like the Rural Electrification Administration that FDR put in place. It electrified 80% of the United States land mass in ten years. And when we're talking about the climate crisis, I would like to go at that clip. So I think if there are ways for us where we have a standstill where things aren't getting built fast enough, where can the federal government, the state government come in with a little political muscle and do that building?And I think that there are additional kind of benefits to doing this too, which include the fact that if you're building public renewables, for instance, you're also probably going to value having higher and better-paid jobs. You are probably going to, in comparison to a private developer, probably thinking a little bit more about some of those community benefits. And I think that there's a real win there that actually kind of creates a baseline for the rest of the private industry in a good way too.David RobertsInstead of just nudging and incentivizing private developers to do these things, we could just do them.Johanna BozuwaWe could just do them and we can also show them the way a little bit too. Right. Like right now, right. We just have the Inflation Reduction Act. Fabulous. We love the climate investments. It's so great. And also it just largely relies on tax incentives, right. And in those it's like you get a little bit more if you use local steel and if you have high wage jobs, all these things. And we could also just do that, build some public renewables and make it happen ourselves. And also when you have, particularly from a job perspective, right, like a public renewables entity that's building these developments with high wage work, that means that the private developers are afraid that they're going to lose all of their workers.So then they have to raise their wages too, which is a good thing.David RobertsRace to the top, I think they call that.Johanna BozuwaI would love a race to the top instead of a race to the bottom in our renewable energy world.David RobertsYes. Okay, we got to keep moving here. There's a long list. The next one is something we covered, I think, on the Thea Riofrancos post, which is just we know we have to build a lot of stuff, but that's not a fixed quantity of stuff we have to build. Right. We can be more efficient with how we use materials. We can try to build in a less material intensive way. So, you know, what Theo was talking about is encourage more walking and biking and multimodal transportation rather than cars, cars, cars. Like that's a choice. And there are other choices we could make to build a clean, but the less material intensive version of clean.There's a lot of different ways we can guide things in that direction.Johanna BozuwaOh yeah, absolutely.David RobertsEveryone should go listen to that podcast, too. This pod is like an advertisement for all my other pods.Johanna BozuwaI love it, I love it. Yeah. And just to kind of emphasize, the more that we can invest in efficiency, the fewer transmission lines we might have to build, right? Like if we have a bunch of houses that aggressively go in on multi units. Like, we're having more people housed in multi units. We're creating urban density. We're making the houses that we already have more efficient. All of those things accumulate and make it so that we actually don't have to do the same level of massive deployment, which is a huge win. So we have to — I think it's like questioning some of the assumptions, too, of how much do we need to build.David RobertsRight. Maybe not all our private vehicles need to be the size of military tanks and weigh three tons. This segues perfectly into the next one, which I feel like is underappreciated, which is supporting distributed energy resources. Talk about why that's part of going faster here. How does that fit into this picture?Johanna BozuwaSo let's say we're able to add rooftop solar to a lot of the rooftops that are around and implement microgrids and put in storage. These are all, again, things that are going to be a lot easier probably to deploy because they're smaller. There's less of this zoning permitting etc. that has to happen when it comes to some of the bigger stuff, where you're going to maybe need environmental review. And so by making those investments in distributed energy resources, you're actually lightening the load again on transmission development.David RobertsRight. It's kind of a piece of the previous one, really.Johanna BozuwaTotally.David RobertsIt's about being less material intensive.Johanna BozuwaExactly. And I also think the added benefit of doing that, of course, is the fact that we live in unreliable times and it adds additional reliability potential by having things like microgrids deployed.David RobertsYes, many future pods on that particular subject are in the works, are cooking in the Volts oven. Let's go to the second big category here, and this is where I have a little bit of skepticism. So this category is "Enhance community participation and consent." So this is what I want to talk about: You say, let's bring communities in more and earlier. And of course, I think most people, at least most people in my world, when they hear "more community involvement," their palms start sweating. They envision these local zoning meetings with old people shouting at city officials.They envision nothing ever getting done, everything getting blocked, NIMBY's everywhere. You have this sentence where it says, "Strengthening community participation early in the process will likely move projects forward faster without as much community opposition." Do we know that to be true? I want that to be true. I like the idea of it. Do we know that?Johanna BozuwaGreat question. It's worth interrogating. I'm going to borrow a little bit from my colleague that we've already referenced today, Thea Riofrancos, that she often says which is "Sometimes going fast isn't actually fast." So, you know, if we streamline, right, or NEPA gets streamlined or many of these other permitting processes, you cut the red tape and therefore you are steamrolling communities affected by the infrastructure. You're potentially hardening them against the project. And when they feel mad or disenfranchised, chances are they're going to throw the book at you. They're going to throw the book to stop the project. We talked about these arbitrary dates set by some of the permitting system.You're actually putting yourself up for far more potential litigation and drawn out legal battles because you actually haven't done the work that's necessary to bring that group on side, nor do you have all of your ducks in a row. So I think that there is a justification for defraying conflict and making our odds better at doing that. I'm not saying that we're not going to run into problems and there isn't going to be this annoying mob of Karens that's going to show up every once in a while. But I do think that our odds do look better when we do involve community.David RobertsThere's a cynical point of view here which says communities are always going to have their Karens. There's always going to be somebody who objects, no matter how early, no matter how much you consult, there's always going to be somebody who doesn't want something near them. The only way in the end to overcome this problem is to take those instruments of delay out of their hands, including the litigation tool, including the environmental review tool, including the community review tool, and just get a little bit more Chinese about the whole thing. Just go do stuff, even if — bulldoze, basically.I know we want to resist that conclusion, but I wish we knew better. I wish we had better models of moving quickly.Johanna BozuwaSo I think actually, since you mentioned the Chinese, I'm going to mention the Danish. And I think that part of this is actually like — we have this problem, right, that we know that deploying renewable energy, deploying clean energy is just incredibly important for the climate crisis. But the benefits are diffuse where the potential negative is pretty concentrated when it comes to these things. And so I think one question we can ask or the permit reviewers or whatever it is, or how we're thinking about developing these projects, is getting in their shoes and asking, what is in it for me?We can pay people to have some of this stuff, right? So the Danish government in the 1990s was building out a bunch of wind. And so one of the ways that they incentivized this wind development was by incentivizing that part of it is owned by the local government to give them a revenue stream. And that actually helped to limit the controversy. And you'll see that in Denmark, people have kind of higher concepts or like the polling is better for wind. And I was talking with this professor, Nick Pevzner from University of Pennsylvania, who was discussing this really interesting particular instance in which in one of these towns where they were going to be around the offshore wind, they actually brought in landscape architects to design the offshore wind. So that it would be aesthetically pleasing.David RobertsThe Danes give a shi-, give a dang, about how things look like. What a thought.Johanna BozuwaHuge difference.David RobertsYes, I know. You look at what's the one waste incineration plant in the middle of the town that's like gorgeous. It's got a laser display, I think it's got a ski hill on it. All these kind of things. It seems like we don't care here in the US. How ugly things are. Witness any sort of midsize town or strip mall or the periphery of any city. Everything's just like plain and ugly. Like what if we made things look nice that might improve community —Johanna BozuwaWe deserve nice things. Communities deserve nice things.David RobertsWe can have nice things. And you talk about we should do what's called a "Cumulative impact analysis."Johanna BozuwaYes.David RobertsAgain, to me on first blush that sounds like oh, bigger and more analysis: Surely that's going to slow things down. So how do you see that working?Johanna BozuwaWell, again, this kind of takes us to our planning. Right. Like cumulative impact analysis which New Jersey and New York have put in place is this way to discern not just the impact of the project but the accumulated impact of that project and what's already come to date. And I think what you would find in cumulative impact in these places, is that actually it's doing some of what we were talking about before, which is trying to fight off the bad and build more of the good. So that's a way to stop new fossil fuel infrastructure but maybe see benefit around solar or something like that.These are actually tools that, yes, as you say, at first glance you might think, "Oh my gosh, more? Really?" But what it's doing is assuring some of that larger meso level discerning and also in a lot of ways these are environmental justice tools too. Right. The reason that they're doing that is because it has so consistently been the same community that has had to shoulder the coal plant, then the gas plant, then the pipeline, then another cement factory. Right. And so they're trying to say, "Okay wait, this is out of control. Let's think about where we're putting this and how that's going to burden people."David RobertsSo the last category here is "Empower a just transition." And I don't think we need to go piece by piece through here since these are very familiar asks from progressive climate people, which is just stop permitting new fossil fuel facilities. Protect the communities that are getting hurt by fossil fuel pollution and set emission reduction targets that will phase out fossil fuels. I think those are all pretty straightforward. I do think the point here, though the larger point you're making with this section is worth underlining because it seems obvious to me, but also frequently left out of this debate, which is if you want to get renewable energy built faster: One way you could do that is through statute and regulation forcing fossil fuel out. Like, nothing's going to speed up renewable energy more than forcing fossil fuels out. Right. It seems so obvious, but it's weirdly left out here.Johanna BozuwaVery weirdly left out. It's a bizarre kind of development that we've seen in the climate realm, right? The IRA, for instance, that is a bill that is great. It creates a lot of carrots, but basically no sticks. And the reality is we need sticks if we're actually going to do this, right, as we were talking about at the kind of outset of the show, we can't let just the entire pie keep on getting bigger and bigger. We actually need to get rid of the fossil fuels. That's the point of what we're doing here. They're the reason that we have the climate crisis.And so, the best way to get rid of them is to just regulate them out of existence, like eliminate them. And I also think there's a certain amount of private industry hates regulation, but they do love certainty. So what is more certain than a decarbonization mandate that says, like, well, you need to be done by this date? And that actually gets us to more of the displacement than when we just say "Build, build, build just hopefully build the right thing for us, please please."David RobertsYes, I think that's true on several micro levels and it's true on a macro level too. One thing that would help us go faster is if we could just clearly articulate our goals. But we're sort of just hampered by having to beg Joe Manchin for his vote. And to get Joe Manchin's vote, you have to pretend that the whole pie is going to get bigger, that everything's going to grow. That's explicitly the grounds upon which he voted yes on Iraq. He sets it outright. He's like, I voted yes because I thought it was going to grow renewable energy and fossil fuels.In some sense, politically, we can't just come out and say the goal is to get rid of fossil fuels. That's where we're headed. It would just help everybody, private developers, state and local governments, if we were just on the same friggin page. Instead of sort of like backing into this, we're just backing into everything we do. Trying to sort of like wink wink at one another. Like we know what we're doing, they don't know what we're doing. It's just a bunch of confusion.Johanna BozuwaRight? And I think that it's also a little bit laughable because they obviously know what we're trying to do, right? Like, we're not really hiding the bag. And I think that this speaks to the need for us to be like, this is a 20-year fight, we're not done with the fight the progressive left needs to keep — we can't just have IRA and think that we're done and can wipe our hands. I mean, even this conversation that has come up on permitting shows that people are hungry and need more. And the question is okay, how do we build the actual political power so that Manchin isn't the one that's in the driver's seat?David RobertsYes.Johanna BozuwaI think one kind of last thing on this kind of community consent piece or community engagement that makes me really nervous to tie us back to the permitting realm, right. Is that the people who are potentially going to be railroaded by infrastructure that they don't want is rural America. And if you are pissing off rural parts of the United States right now, that's a very short-sighted game to be playing, right. Because you are potentially taking these rural folk who have just been beaten back again and again, and you're turning them to the right, to a growing fascist right, and giving away a massive voting bloc that is going to be crucial for us to continue to win and win again and keep winning until we actually solve the climate crisis.So I think when it comes to this kind of larger political project that we're doing on from a progressive perspective, we have to be wary of this idea that this is — not a get it fixed quick scheme.David RobertsYes. We do not want to tick off these particular communities any more than they're ticked off. I think if you talk to Biden administration officials sort of behind the scenes, they will tell you that part of the design of IRA, part of the thinking behind it is we need to flood these areas of the country that were hollowed out by neoliberalism, hollowed out by globalism. We need to flood them with new economic activity and new development or else our democracy is screwed. But it is also the case that you can't just go stomping things down here and there, willy-nilly, without community consent.They need to have a feeling that they're involved in where and how this is done.Johanna BozuwaYeah, we're trying to bring them into the fight for a populist amazing future, and shoving this down their throats I just don't think is the most effective tactic. And if you look back to the New Deal, right, so much of it was workers. It was people that were in more of rural America. There were so many of these folks who were standing up and fighting. And if we're not setting ourselves up for that same kind of sea change, then I'm afraid we're not going to be able to win this thing.David RobertsOkay. We are just about out of time. So just to kind of review, this is just, I think the point of your report, point of all this is to say the question of speed is not the same as the question of permitting. Technically speaking, permitting is a relatively small piece of the puzzle here. There's lots of other things we could be doing to speed things up that have nothing technically to do with NEPA or even technically to do with permitting. And we've reviewed a lot of them here, and I would commend people to your report to get a fuller picture of them and to think about them.But let me finish, I guess with, this is all a vision. I love this vision, but politics are politics and we live in a fallen world, et cetera, et cetera. So toward the end of last session, there was this chance to have a permitting deal, and basically it was these sort of arbitrary caps on NEPA reviews, the length of NEPA reviews and the Mountain Valley pipeline in exchange for some pretty substantial transmission stuff, some pretty substantial stuff on transmission, federal transmission planning. The progressive movement rallied to kill that. They called it Manchin's dirty deal. They rallied, they killed it.And what ended up happening was the NEPA stuff squeezed through somewhere else. The Mountain Valley pipeline squeezed through somewhere else, and the transmission stuff died. Looking back on that, do you think that was the right political move for the progressive movement to fight that bill? And more broadly, do you think the progressive movement is prepared to sort of make the political trade-offs which are going to be necessary since a lot of this stuff that you list in your report is just going to be very difficult with today's current political distribution of power?Johanna BozuwaYeah, great question, and I think my answer is that the progressive movement still did the right thing. We needed to fight — or the progressive movement folks who were in those fights needed to fight off and make very clear the MVP is not something that we can have — this permitting that's going to expand. It was a big toad to swallow. And I think if we look at some of the transmission stuff, like, sure, it was fine. Was it the things that we were fully looking for? I think it was Hickenlooper's bill, big wires that was in some of those kind of final fights, right.With the Fiscal Responsibility Act, his bill included something like a 30% interregional transfer. The DOE says we need a 120% increase in interregional transfer. That's just not even at the scale that we need, and we'd be giving up so much for it. So, yeah, we didn't fully win that fight, but I think that from what I'm hearing, kind of at the congressional level, there is the potential for another bite at the apple on transmission. There is still some, as we said earlier, right, everyone agrees that transmission is a boondoggle right now and a hot mess. So I think that should be one of the things that we're thinking about as the progressive movement.How do we do that? Right? But I don't think I would go back in time and say "Eh, we should just accept Manchin's deal." I think that it was an important political flag to stamp in the ground that, no, we actually don't believe that we should be expanding fossil fuels and renewable energy at the same time because that's not what we need to do. Saying all that, I do think there are things that we can be doing right now to advance transmission. For instance, FERC is looking at some of these interconnection issues right now. Biden should not rest on his laurels until he gets someone approved and appointed to the FERC board.David RobertsHey, there's Joe Manchin again being a jerk.Johanna BozuwaI know, it's so true. But there are things and again, we've already talked on this pod about stuff that can be done at the state level, too. We still have some cards to play in our hand to accelerate and prove our case increasingly and build the case for more federal implementation, too.David RobertsJohanna, thanks so much for coming on. I feel like lately the progressive environmental left has appeared in mainstream media and social media more as a weird caricature viewed from a distance than been able to speak for itself. So I'm glad to be able to have you on so we can talk through a little bit about how progressives see this and the larger issues at play and their specific recommendations, all of which I think are great. So people should check out your report. And thanks for sharing your time with us.Johanna BozuwaThank you so much for having me today, David. It's lovely.David RobertsThank you for listening to the Volts podcast. It is ad-free, powered entirely by listeners like you. If you value conversations like this, please consider becoming a paid Volts subscriber at volts.wtf. Yes, that's volts.wtf so that I can continue doing this work. Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time. Get full access to Volts at www.volts.wtf/subscribe

Featuring Amna Akbar, Gabriel Winant, and Thea Riofrancos on the emerging terrain of struggle. Is American liberalism exhausted or revitalized? What are the successes and limits of the new US left electoral strategy? Is there a new anti-electoral mood amongst socialists? Why don't we have a powerful climate movement? What forces are making and remaking the American working class today? The second and final part of a very wide-ranging interview.Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigCheck out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.comBuy Reform, Revolution, and Opportunism: Debates in the Second International, 1900-1910 haymarketbooks.org/books/2109-reform-revolution-and-opportunism Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Featuring Amna Akbar, Gabriel Winant, and Thea Riofrancos on the emerging terrain of struggle. Is American liberalism exhausted or revitalized? What are the successes and limits of the new US left electoral strategy? Is there a new anti-electoral mood amongst socialists? Why don't we have a powerful climate movement? What forces are making and remaking the American working class today? The second and final part of a very wide-ranging interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out our newsletter and vast archives at thedigradio.com Buy Reform, Revolution, and Opportunism: Debates in the Second International, 1900-1910 haymarketbooks.org/books/2109-reform-revolution-and-opportunism

Featuring Amna Akbar, Gabriel Winant, and Thea Riofrancos on the American conjuncture. Did an era that began with Occupy and Ferguson—marked by teachers strikes, two Bernie campaigns, the explosive growth of DSA, Standing Rock, and summer 2020 rebellions—just end? What social, political, and economic terrain is emerging in the wake of the pandemic, and how should the left navigate it? The first of a two-part and wide-ranging interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDigAll Haymarket books are 40% off! Shop at haymarketbooks.orgBuy After Work by Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek versobooks.com/products/496-after-work Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Featuring Amna Akbar, Gabriel Winant, and Thea Riofrancos on the American conjuncture. Did an era that began with Occupy and Ferguson—marked by teachers strikes, two Bernie campaigns, the explosive growth of DSA, Standing Rock, and summer 2020 rebellions—just end? What social, political, and economic terrain is emerging in the wake of the pandemic, and how should the left navigate it? The first of a two-part and wide-ranging interview. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig All Haymarket books are 40% off! Shop at haymarketbooks.org Buy After Work by Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek versobooks.com/products/496-after-work

This week we are talking all things mobility and mining, and we've the absolute pleasure of being joined by Thea Riofrancos, Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College. With her research being focused on resource extraction, renewable energy, climate change, green technology and social movements, she's the perfect person to explain why building our transport future around resource-intensive technologies such as lithium batteries is a non-starter, and indeed that we should be pushing back against it as hard as we can. Join us LIVE at 7pm UK time! Link to the More Mobility, Less Mining project: https://www.climateandcommunity.org/more-mobility-less-mining Enjoyed this? Please do consider supporting #RailNatter at https://patreon.com/garethdennis or throw loose change at me via https://paypal.me/garethdennis. Merch at https://garethdennis.co.uk/merch. Join in the discussion at https://garethdennis.co.uk/discord.

Electrification offers an opportunity to rethink how we use energy and how we get around. Researcher Thea Riofrancos wants to see the U.S. seize that opportunity and set the country on a path to a better, more equitable future. Promotions: Earth Breeze: earthbreeze.com/drilled for 40% off Athletic Greens: athleticgreens.com/DRILLED for a free 1-year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs Express VPN: expressvpn.com/drilled for an extra three months free on a one-year package Subscribe to our newsletter! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many Americans have range anxiety when they contemplate buying an electric vehicle. But is the solution bigger car batteries or better charging and transit infrastructure? Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Thea Riofrancos, political science professor at Providence College, about how EV batteries impact the environment and what else can be done to create a no-emissions future.

Many Americans have range anxiety when they contemplate buying an electric vehicle. But is the solution bigger car batteries or better charging and transit infrastructure? Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Thea Riofrancos, political science professor at Providence College, about how EV batteries impact the environment and what else can be done to create a no-emissions future.

Right now, we're investing billions of dollars into charging infrastructure in order to speed up the transition to electric cars and decarbonize transportation. But there are all sorts of problems that EVs won't solve: bumper-to-bumper traffic, extractive metal mining, and car collisions that kill tens of thousands of drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians every year in the US. That's why transit activists say we need to rethink the way we get around. Because learning to drive less isn't just about safer streets and better quality of life – it's also key to winning the race to net zero. Featuring: Effie Kong, Jascha Franklin-Hodge, LaShea Johnson, Alex Hudson, Edwin Lindo, Thea Riofrancos. SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook LINKSRead more about Boston's 3-year plan to expand the city's biking infrastructure, make crosswalks safer for pedestrians, and offer biking classes to women and gender-diverse adults.The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is in the middle of getting feedback on the Seattle Transportation Plan on how to build a safer and more efficient transportation system.Read about Cul De Sac Tempe, a new car-free community in Arizona, where residents are contractually forbidden from parking within a quarter-mile radius of the site. (Bloomberg)According to studies in Cambridge, MA and Toronto, Canada, bike lanes have a neutral or even positive impact on local businesses, even if some parking spaces are taken away.A paper in the journal Energy Research & Social Science describes the EV transition  as “a wolf in sheep's clothing” and argues that private vehicle electrification is neither effective, nor equitable.This LA Times Op-ed argues that switching  to electric cars isn't enough to solve climate change.Studies say pedestrians and bikers are more likely to be hit by EVs and cause more damage because they're quieter and heavier than gas cars.Archival audio in this episode come from the 1953 film The American Road funded by Ford Motor Company, and Futurama at the 1939 NY World's Fair. CREDITSHost: Nate HegyiReported and produced by Felix PoonMixed by Felix Poon and Taylor QuimbyEdited by Taylor QuimbyEditing help from Rebecca lavoie, Justine Paradis, Jessica Hunt, and Mara HaplamazianRebecca Lavoie is our Executive ProducerMusic for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, and Roy Edwin WilliamsOur theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Transitioning to electric vehicles is essential to meeting our climate goals. But there are so many barriers to overcome – from expanding EV charging infrastructure, to updating the power grid, to mining the metals that make batteries go.In the first of a two-part series on decarbonizing transportation, we try to answer the critical question: is it all happening fast enough to avoid the worst climate impacts?Featuring: Craig Bentley, Nora Naughton, Sara Baldwin, Thea RiofrancosIf you've got a question for the Outside/Inbox hotline, give us a call! We're always looking for rabbit holes to dive down into. Leave us a voicemail at: 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837), or email us at outsidein@nhpr.org. SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter.Follow Outside/In on Instagram or Twitter, or join our private discussion group on Facebook LINKSEV transition predictive modelsThe 2035 report (Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley)The long road to electric cars (Reuters)Consumer education and survey findingsEV charging levels explained (US DOT)GM EV LiveIn a Consumer Report's survey and a Reuters/Ipsos survey, more than a third of Americans say they'd consider buying an EV for their next car.Charging infrastructureThe Electric Vehicle Road Test (Wall Street Journal)Federal money is now headed to states for building up fast EV chargers on highways (NPR)The gridWhy Electric Vehicles Won't Break the Grid (Scientific AmericanAn explosion in proposed clean energy ventures has overwhelmed the system for connecting new power sources to homes and businesses (NY Times)Metal extractionListen to our episode The lithium gold rush, an in-depth look at where lithium comes from, and who's being affected by mining it.Read the Achieving Zero Emissions with More Mobility and Less Mining report by Thea Riofrancos. CREDITSHost: Nate HegyiReported and produced by Felix PoonMixed by Felix Poon and Taylor QuimbyEdited by Taylor QuimbyEditing help from Rebecca lavoie, Justine Paradis, Jessica Hunt, and Mara HaplamazianRebecca Lavoie is our Executive ProducerMusic for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, and Roy Edwin WilliamsOur theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

A decade ago, the so-called "Pink Tide" of leftist governments in Latin America seemed to be heading towards a tragic end. However, events in the past few years have raised questions about whether a new Pink Tide has emerged. The defeat of the coup government in Bolivia, the election of Xiomara Castro in Honduras, the rise of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, the historic election of Gustavo Petro in Colombia, and now the return of Lula in Brazil suggests a new age may be dawning in the region. Yet for all the successes, there have also been setbacks—the coup against Pedro Castillo in Peru last fall, and the failure of the Gabriel Boric government to pass a new constitution stand out as the sharpest examples. In the first of a four-part series of special collaboration episodes between NACLA and The Marc Steiner Show, we turn to a panel of regional experts to discuss the context and prospects of the 'New Pink Tide' to steer the region towards a more prosperous and just future. This episode is co-hosted with Dr. Hilary Goodfriend.Hilary Goodfriend is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Latino and Latin American Studies Research Center at the University of California, Riverside. She is a contributing editor for Jacobin and Jacobin América Latina. She is also on the editorial board of NACLA.Thea Riofrancos is an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, and a member of the Climate + Community Project. She is the author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador from Duke University Press.Sabrina Fernández is a postdoctoral fellow at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, a member of the Foundation's International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-Strategies, and a Visiting Researcher at the Free University of Berlin.René Rojas, a professor at Binghamton University's College of Community and Public Affairs and a member of the editorial board of the left journal Catalyst.Help us continue producing The Marc Steiner Show by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer:Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-pod-mssSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-pod-stGet The Marc Steiner Show updates: https://therealnews.com/up-pod-stLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnews

A decade ago, the so-called "Pink Tide" of leftist governments in Latin America seemed to be heading towards a tragic end. However, events in the past few years have raised questions about whether a new Pink Tide has emerged. The defeat of the coup government in Bolivia, the election of Xiomara Castro in Honduras, the rise of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, the historic election of Gustavo Petro in Colombia, and now the return of Lula in Brazil suggests a new age may be dawning in the region. Yet for all the successes, there have also been setbacks—the coup against Pedro Castillo in Peru last fall, and the failure of the Gabriel Boric government to pass a new constitution stand out as the sharpest examples. In the first of a four-part series of special collaboration episodes between NACLA and The Marc Steiner Show, we turn to a panel of regional experts to discuss the context and prospects of the 'New Pink Tide' to steer the region towards a more prosperous and just future. This episode is co-hosted with Dr. Hilary Goodfriend.Hilary Goodfriend is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Latino and Latin American Studies Research Center at the University of California, Riverside. She is a contributing editor for Jacobin and Jacobin América Latina. She is also on the editorial board of NACLA.Thea Riofrancos is an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, and a member of the Climate + Community Project. She is the author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador from Duke University Press.Sabrina Fernández is a postdoctoral fellow at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, a member of the Foundation's International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-Strategies, and a Visiting Researcher at the Free University of Berlin.René Rojas, a professor at Binghamton University's College of Community and Public Affairs and a member of the editorial board of the left journal Catalyst.Help us continue producing The Marc Steiner Show by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer:Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-pod-mssSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-pod-stGet The Marc Steiner Show updates: https://therealnews.com/up-pod-stLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnews

The transportation sector is the leading carbon emitter in the US economy, and unlike some other sources, it is on the rise. Decarbonizing it is inevitably going to involve wholesale electrification of personal vehicles. We're going to need lots and lots of EVs. That's going to mean more demand for minerals like lithium, which is mined in environmentally destructive ways and almost everywhere opposed by local and indigenous groups. But lithium can be mined in more or less harmful ways, depending on where and how it's done and how well it's governed. And the number of EVs needed in the future — and the consequent demand for lithium — is not fixed. The US transportation sector could decarbonize in more or less car-intensive ways. If US cities densified and built better public transportation and more walking and cycling infrastructure, fewer people would need cars and the cars could get by with smaller batteries. That would mean less demand for lithium, less mining, and less destruction.But how much less? That brings us to a new report: “Achieving Zero Emissions with More Mobility and Less Mining,” from the Climate and Community Project and UC Davis. It models the lithium intensity of several different pathways to decarbonization for the US personal-vehicle market to determine how much lithium demand could be reduced in different zero-carbon scenarios.It's a novel line of research (hopefully a sign of more to come) and an important step toward deepening and complicating the discussion of US transportation decarbonization. I was thrilled to talk to its lead author, Thea Riofrancos, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow and associate professor of political science at Providence College, about the reality of lithium mining, the coming demand for more lithium, and the ways that demand can be reduced through smart transportation choices. Get full access to Volts at www.volts.wtf/subscribe

Producer Lindsey Gorry replays an interview from 2019 with political scientist Thea Riofrancos while Chuck recovers from Covid-19. More info on Thea Riofrancos work here: http://www.theariofrancos.com/about And find her on twitter here: https://twitter.com/triofrancos

Join Drew Pendergrass, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Andrea Vetter, Matthew Huber, and Thea Riofrancos for a discussion on left climate strategy that assesses where we are and what we should be fighting for. What are the most useful frameworks to help the Left to organize our climate justice movements? What demands should we prioritize, and what strategies can we borrow from history and from other social movements? How can utopian thinking expand our horizons in what must be a massive fight for a more sustainable future? Centering class struggle, transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy, anti-capitalist economic alternatives like degrowth and socialist planning: can all of these ideas (and more!) be woven into a clear message and a blueprint for change? Join a panel of environmental thinkers to discuss left climate strategy and to assess where we are and what could be possible. A conversation with Drew Pendergrass, co-author of Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics, Matthew Huber, author of Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet, Andrea Vetter, co-author of The Future Is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism, and Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, author of Reconsidering Reparations and Elite Capture. Moderated by Thea Riofrancos. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Drew Pendergrass is a PhD student in Environmental Engineering at Harvard University. His current research uses satellite, aircraft and surface observations of the environment to correct supercomputer models of the atmosphere. His environmental writing has been published in Harper's, the Guardian, Jacobin, and Current Affairs. He is co-author of Half-Earth Socialism. Matthew T. Huber is Professor of Geography in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He is the author of Lifeblood and Climate Change as Class War. Andrea Vetter is a transformation researcher, activist and journalist, using degrowth, commons and critical eco-feminism as tools. She is co-author of The Future is Degrowth. Thea Riofrancos is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College. She is the author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador (Duke University Press, 2020), co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso Books, 2019), and currently writing Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism for W.W. Norton. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and The Guardian, among others. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. He is the author of the book Reconsidering Reparations and Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else). He has published in academic journals ranging from Public Affairs Quarterly, One Earth, Philosophical Papers, and the American Philosophical Association newsletter Philosophy and the Black Experience. Táíwò's theoretical work draws liberally from the Black radical tradition, anti-colonial thought, German transcendental philosophy, contemporary philosophy of language, contemporary social science, and histories of activism and activist thinkers. His public philosophy, including articles exploring intersections of climate justice and colonialism, has been featured in The New Yorker, The Nation, Boston Review, Dissent, The Appeal, Slate, Al Jazeera, The New Republic, Aeon, and Foreign Policy. This event is co-sponsored by Haymarket Books and Verso Books. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/9MNwY_6X1ZI Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Paris Marx is joined by Thea Riofrancos to discuss how the push for electric vehicles is driving governments in the United States and Europe to onshore mining after decades of doing the reverse, what that means for companies in the sector, and how movements are pushing back against this resource-intensive vision for a green transition.Thea Riofrancos is an Andrew Carnegie Fellow,  an Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, and a member of the Climate + Community Project. She's also the author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador. Follow Thea on Twitter at @triofrancos.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, support the show on Patreon, and sign up for the weekly newsletter.The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.Also mentioned in this episode:Thea wrote about the push to onshore mining activities and what it means for climate justice, and recently published an academic article on the “security-sustainability nexus” relating to lithium onshoring.EV raw material costs doubled during the pandemic, forcing many automakers to raise prices.A lithium mine in Portugal was scrapped after local opposition, but other projects continue to move ahead.The US Inflation Reduction Act included many benefits for mining companies and tied EV tax credits to mineral supply chains.Support the show

Remember the time Summer Roberts from THE O.C. (2003-2007) went to college and became a hardcore environmental activist? Maria and her guests Emma and Hailey trace Summer's Season 4 journey to find her destiny as an early 2000s climate activist, in the long tradition of teen drama mean girls finding their voices through organizing. With many of Summer's demands sounding eerily similar to the demands of today's climate justice movement, Maria also takes the opportunity to discuss the Green New Deal, with the help of A Planet To Win: Why We Need A Green New Deal by Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. Maria and her guests discuss this ambitious and exciting policy framework that Summer Roberts would certainly be fighting to pass in the present.  For this episode, we recommend you first watch or have familiarity with THE O.C. Season 4, streaming on HBO Max and Hulu. FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL | instagram, tumblr, tiktok: @leftistteendrama | twitter: @leftyteendrama | website: leftistteendrama.com _ ABOUT US: MARIA DIPASQUALE (she/her; host/editor) is a Brooklyn-based union communicator and writer who watches too much TV. Follow Maria on Twitter @Maria_DiP26, IG @mdzip, and tiktok @marialovesunions. In addition to Leftist Teen Drama, Maria hosts Bodysuits For Bughead: A Riverdale Podcast | tumblr: @bodysuitsforbughead twitter: @B4B_Podcast instagram: @bodysuits4bughead EMMA ROSE (she/her; recurring guest) watches a lot—and she means a lot—of reality tv, with the occasional teen drama or murder mystery or sci-fi thriller thrown in for good measure. When she's not watching said television, you can find her listening to podcasts and diving into internet content about said television. Sometimes she posts on instagram @emmaaaaaroseeeee (5 a's and 5 e's) HAILEY MCINNES (she/her; recurring guest) is a market researcher based in NYC. When she isn't nerding out over data, she can be found binging all of the TV, drinking all the chilled red wine, and hanging with her cat son and human husband. IG: haileymcinnes / TW: haileymcinnes13 CHARLES O'LEARY (they/them; art) is, of course, a Brooklyn-based designer, artist, and dilettante. A survivor of the 2012-2016 Tumblr wars, media criticism is all they know. You can find their work at charles-oleary.com, and their silly little life on Instagram at @c.s.0.l. JEFF MCHALE (he/him; producer) is an extremely online guy who plays games, streams sometimes, and loves talking old TV. Maria and Jeff's good union cats CLARENCE and VINNY may make an appearance and/or be mentioned.  intro song: Stomping the Room by Delicate Beats All opinions shared on this show are that of individuals and do not represent the views of any organization we may be affiliated with. _ SOURCES DISCUSSED IN THE EPISODE:  Welcome to the OC, Bitches! podcast with Rachel Bilson and Melinda Clarke A Planet To Win: Why We Need A Green New Deal by Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos (with foreword by Naomi Klein) 2019 Forbes article, Report: The U.S. Military Emits More CO2 Than Many Industrialized Nations [Infographic] _ SUGGESTED FURTHER ACTION/LISTENING: plug in to…Sunrise Movement plug in to…DSA Ecosocialists It Could Happen Here podcast

A conversation with David Adler and Thea Riofrancos about the return of the Latin American left — unlocked from Patreon in advance of hugely consequential elections in Colombia this weekend!! (Originally published May 15, 2022.)Hope for the American left is at a fairly low ebb, at the moment, but our counterparts in Latin America are on the march and succeeding at beating back repressive right wing governments across the region. What can we learn from them? And given extremely volatile global conditions — and the continued role of the US in defending the interests of capital in the region — what can these new left-wing governments hope to accomplish?Sam is joined by political scientist Thea Riofrancos and David Adler, the General Coordinator of the Progressive International, to discuss left populism in Chile, Colombia, Brazil, and elsewhere. Further Reading: Thea Riofrancos & David Adler, "Gabriel Boric and Latin America's new pink tide," New Statesman, Mar 11, 2022.Thea Riofrancos, "The rush to ‘go electric' comes with a hidden cost: destructive lithium mining," Guardian, Jun 14, 2021.— "The View from Latin America," Boston Review, Apr 27, 2020. — "Ecuador After Correa," n+1, Fall 2017.John Bartlett, "Chilean journalist dies after being shot while covering Workers' Day marches," Guardian, May 12, 2022...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

Hope for the American left is at a fairly low ebb, at the moment, but our counterparts in Latin America are on the march and succeeding at beating back repressive right wing governments across the region. What can we learn from them? And given extremely volatile global conditions — and the continued role of the US in defending the interests of capital in the region — what can these new left-wing governments hope to accomplish?Sam is joined by political scientist Thea Riofrancos and David Adler, the General Coordinator of the Progressive International, to discuss left populism in Chile, Colombia, Brazil, and elsewhere. Subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to listen to this bonus episode, and all of our bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/knowyourenemy

With Rethinking Comparison: Innovative Methods for Qualitative Political Inquiry (Cambridge University Press, 2021) Erica S. Simmons and Nicholas Rush Smith issue a call for qualitative political scientists to go beyond the controlled comparisons so dear to them, and rethink what it is that they compare and why. The call is both earnest and compelling. The book is persuasive not just in its efforts to show that the what and why of comparison ought not be limited to the “Millian paradigm”—even as its editors are at pains to express their appreciation for the paradigm's logics. Over twelve chapters, an impressive roll-call of contributors together explicate and demonstrate how the practice of comparison can be systematically broadened and creatively adapted to ensure qualitative political science's enduring relevance, even as its potential objects of inquiry proliferate and diversify. Chapters include one on two ways to compare by Frederic Schaffer, whose Elucidating Social Science Concepts featured on New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science in 2020, and another by series host, Nick Cheesman. Other contributors include Jason Seawright, Joe Soss, and Thea Riofrancos, whose Resource Radicals received the Charles Taylor Book Award in 2021. The book closes via an epilogue with Lisa Wedeen, who spoke about her Authoritarian Apprehensions in an episode that year. Rethinking comparison is not without risk. But a political science without risk-takers would be an inert discipline. Fortunately, with the likes of Simmons and Smith exciting debate about what, why and how we compare, the discipline is sure to remain lively, and relevant. Nick Cheesman is associate professor in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. He is a committee member of the Interpretive Methodologies and Methods group of the American Political Science Association and co-convenes the Interpretation, Method, Critique network at the ANU. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

With Rethinking Comparison: Innovative Methods for Qualitative Political Inquiry (Cambridge University Press, 2021) Erica S. Simmons and Nicholas Rush Smith issue a call for qualitative political scientists to go beyond the controlled comparisons so dear to them, and rethink what it is that they compare and why. The call is both earnest and compelling. The book is persuasive not just in its efforts to show that the what and why of comparison ought not be limited to the “Millian paradigm”—even as its editors are at pains to express their appreciation for the paradigm's logics. Over twelve chapters, an impressive roll-call of contributors together explicate and demonstrate how the practice of comparison can be systematically broadened and creatively adapted to ensure qualitative political science's enduring relevance. Chapters include one on two ways to compare by Frederic Schaffer, whose Elucidating Social Science Concepts featured on New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science in 2020, and another by series host, Nick Cheesman. Other contributors include Jason Seawright, Joe Soss, and Thea Riofrancos, whose Resource Radicals received the Charles Taylor Book Award in 2021. The book closes via an epilogue with Lisa Wedeen, who spoke about her Authoritarian Apprehensions in an episode that year. Rethinking comparison is not without risk. But a political science without risk-takers would be an inert discipline. Fortunately, with the likes of Simmons and Smith exciting debate about what, why and how we compare, the discipline is sure to remain lively, and relevant. Nick Cheesman is associate professor in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. He is a committee member of the Interpretive Methodologies and Methods group of the American Political Science Association and co-convenes the Interpretation, Method, Critique network at the ANU. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

With Rethinking Comparison: Innovative Methods for Qualitative Political Inquiry (Cambridge University Press, 2021) Erica S. Simmons and Nicholas Rush Smith issue a call for qualitative political scientists to go beyond the controlled comparisons so dear to them, and rethink what it is that they compare and why. The call is both earnest and compelling. The book is persuasive not just in its efforts to show that the what and why of comparison ought not be limited to the “Millian paradigm”—even as its editors are at pains to express their appreciation for the paradigm's logics. Over twelve chapters, an impressive roll-call of contributors together explicate and demonstrate how the practice of comparison can be systematically broadened and creatively adapted to ensure qualitative political science's enduring relevance, even as its potential objects of inquiry proliferate and diversify. Chapters include one on two ways to compare by Frederic Schaffer, whose Elucidating Social Science Concepts featured on New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science in 2020, and another by series host, Nick Cheesman. Other contributors include Jason Seawright, Joe Soss, and Thea Riofrancos, whose Resource Radicals received the Charles Taylor Book Award in 2021. The book closes via an epilogue with Lisa Wedeen, who spoke about her Authoritarian Apprehensions in an episode that year. Rethinking comparison is not without risk. But a political science without risk-takers would be an inert discipline. Fortunately, with the likes of Simmons and Smith exciting debate about what, why and how we compare, the discipline is sure to remain lively, and relevant. Nick Cheesman is associate professor in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. He is a committee member of the Interpretive Methodologies and Methods group of the American Political Science Association and co-convenes the Interpretation, Method, Critique network at the ANU. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

With Rethinking Comparison: Innovative Methods for Qualitative Political Inquiry (Cambridge University Press, 2021) Erica S. Simmons and Nicholas Rush Smith issue a call for qualitative political scientists to go beyond the controlled comparisons so dear to them, and rethink what it is that they compare and why. The call is both earnest and compelling. The book is persuasive not just in its efforts to show that the what and why of comparison ought not be limited to the “Millian paradigm”—even as its editors are at pains to express their appreciation for the paradigm's logics. Over twelve chapters, an impressive roll-call of contributors together explicate and demonstrate how the practice of comparison can be systematically broadened and creatively adapted to ensure qualitative political science's enduring relevance, even as its potential objects of inquiry proliferate and diversify. Chapters include one on two ways to compare by Frederic Schaffer, whose Elucidating Social Science Concepts featured on New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science in 2020, and another by series host, Nick Cheesman. Other contributors include Jason Seawright, Joe Soss, and Thea Riofrancos, whose Resource Radicals received the Charles Taylor Book Award in 2021. The book closes via an epilogue with Lisa Wedeen, who spoke about her Authoritarian Apprehensions in an episode that year. Rethinking comparison is not without risk. But a political science without risk-takers would be an inert discipline. Fortunately, with the likes of Simmons and Smith exciting debate about what, why and how we compare, the discipline is sure to remain lively, and relevant. Nick Cheesman is associate professor in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. He is a committee member of the Interpretive Methodologies and Methods group of the American Political Science Association and co-convenes the Interpretation, Method, Critique network at the ANU. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

With Rethinking Comparison: Innovative Methods for Qualitative Political Inquiry (Cambridge University Press, 2021) Erica S. Simmons and Nicholas Rush Smith issue a call for qualitative political scientists to go beyond the controlled comparisons so dear to them, and rethink what it is that they compare and why. The call is both earnest and compelling. The book is persuasive not just in its efforts to show that the what and why of comparison ought not be limited to the “Millian paradigm”—even as its editors are at pains to express their appreciation for the paradigm's logics. Over twelve chapters, an impressive roll-call of contributors together explicate and demonstrate how the practice of comparison can be systematically broadened and creatively adapted to ensure qualitative political science's enduring relevance. Chapters include one on two ways to compare by Frederic Schaffer, whose Elucidating Social Science Concepts featured on New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science in 2020, and another by series host, Nick Cheesman. Other contributors include Jason Seawright, Joe Soss, and Thea Riofrancos, whose Resource Radicals received the Charles Taylor Book Award in 2021. The book closes via an epilogue with Lisa Wedeen, who spoke about her Authoritarian Apprehensions in an episode that year. Rethinking comparison is not without risk. But a political science without risk-takers would be an inert discipline. Fortunately, with the likes of Simmons and Smith exciting debate about what, why and how we compare, the discipline is sure to remain lively, and relevant. Nick Cheesman is associate professor in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. He is a committee member of the Interpretive Methodologies and Methods group of the American Political Science Association and co-convenes the Interpretation, Method, Critique network at the ANU.

Ian Morse, publisher of “Green Rocks” newsletter; Thea Riofrancos, Assistant Professor Political Science, Providence College Lithium mining is in the spotlight right now - prices have gone insane, as Elon Musk tweeted only just last week, saying that Tesla may get into the mining business itself as a result. Lithium, along with cobalt and nickel, are critical elements of electric vehicle batteries and we’re hearing everywhere these days that there isn’t enough of this stuff to go around.I wanted to know if this is actually, geologically, true? And is this the dirty secret of the clean energy revolution?To find out, I talked to Thea Riofrancos. She is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Providence College, and Ian Morse. He is science writer and publisher of the “Green Rocks” newsletterWhat I found out was that this is a really big conversation that touches everything from global supply chains to climate action to human rights to geopolitics to commodity markets. Some of the big questions we tackled were: Are we in locked a global struggle for scarce mineral resources that are critical for the energy transition?Does this mean we have to mine like crazy to get them?And is there such a thing as clean and responsible mining?Spoiler alert - nothing may be actually quite what it seems on the outside.Oh, and, by the way, Elon Musk says that Tesla have some cool ideas for sustainable lithium extraction and refinement. But, as Ian explains at the end of our interview, Tesla’s batteries are notorious for being impossible to recycle, thereby driving even more demand to mine for lithium.So, buckle up for a fascinating and thought provoking discussion. We talked about:01:25 “Critical minerals” is a term with military origins, Thea cautions against replicating that idea - that national security depends on the control or dominance of the supply chains that these minerals feed.5.54 Calling them “climate” or “decarbonisation” metals allows mining companies to re-brand extractive activities as sustainable and responsible.8.57 Why are prices so high right now? Thea & Ian talk about market speculation and the financialization of commodity prices, the role of commodity traders.14.27 Mines on average take a decade to build and operationalize - this creates a lag between demand and supply, and drives markets shortages and price rises.19.27 Relying exclusively on mining to drive the energy transition may be one of the slowest ways to do climate action, because we know we’ll only have enough materials in 15 years.22.42 The global map of lithium extraction is changing. Right now there are four main producers, in 10 years from now that will probably double. Rivalries will change, and nation states will shift their economic policies around these stakes.24.03 Market shortages of critical minerals is driving two big new trends: On-shoring of extractive activities and vertical integration of supply chains.Car companies like Tesla and VW are contracting directly with raw material companies, either via direct investment or joint ventures. This further drives market shortages as it takes years of supply off the market.24.13 Ian talks about his experience covering nickel mining in Sulawesi, Indonesia, “where the ground was dug up, shipped elsewhere. And people there were left with red seas, polluted air, no rainforest.”32.45 The “global race” media narrative crowds out discussion of solutions to the climate emergency, and it allows mining companies to brand themselves as climate heroes.35.00 The worst way to organize an energy transition is to change only the fuel source. The fastest way to decarbonize the transport sector is to scale up public transportation.40.50 What can we learn from the recent example of Chile, a mineral powerhouse with a new left-wing government breaking new ground on policy approaches to the extractive sector.57.49 Our EV batteries were not designed to be recycled - they are hard to take apart, and its hard to extract the minerals to be re-used. So recycling could significantly cut down on how much we need to mine. Why isn’t this happening at scale now? Because recycling is competing against heavily subsidized materials - which is newly mined metals.52.40 China’s BYD recently developed a battery that’s relatively easy to pull apart with your hands, but the Tesla battery is notoriously difficult to disassemble and recycle.☕☕☕ If you enjoyed this ad-free podcast and feel that you’ve learned something, you can say thank you by buying me a coffee. Subscribe at thezeroist.substack.com

Riley, Alice, and Milo look at the ongoing descent of the UK pundit class into embodying the global death drive, and take a look at a story of a certain kind of British Guy achieving apotheosis (spending £218 of Bolton Council's money meant for excluded children at the Spar in Praia du Luz in Portugal). In between, Riley talks to academic Thea Riofrancos about why "onshoring" mining is all the rage now that the world's security and energy orders have both been thrown into disarray. The interview with Thea starts at 23:16 and ends at 53:45! Read Thea's article on mining here (paywalled): https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/07/renewable-energy-transition-critical-minerals-mining-onshoring-lithium-evs-climate-justice/ If you want access to our Patreon bonus episodes, early releases of free episodes, and powerful Discord server, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/trashfuture *LIVE SHOW ALERT* We will be doing a live show in London on Wednesday, March 2. Get your tickets here! https://www.designmynight.com/london/whats-on/comedy/trashfuture-live-pre-election-christmas-spectacular *MILO ALERT* Milo has a bunch of live shows this month in both London and Prague. Check them out here: https://www.miloedwards.co.uk/live-show *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and Alice (@AliceAvizandum)

Who owns these resources, who builds and controls renewable energy infrastructures and ultimately who will access and benefit from them, are key questions to address if we want to understand what is at stake when we speak about the energy transition.  In this discussion David Hughes, Mika Minio-Paluello and Thea Riofrancos focus on the question of wind and how this endless resource can be appropriated to generate a socially profitable energy transformation.

In the season 1 finale of Leftist Teen Drama, Maria is joined by Emma and Dondré as we discuss the recent emergence of post-apocalyptic teen dramas like THE WILDS (2020-present), THE SOCIETY (2019), and DAYBREAK (2019). We talk about everything from the Gen Z/millennial climate anxiety present in all three scenarios to the way these shows answer the questions, “how will we survive? Where will we get food from, or shelter?” We also discuss the huge parallels between THE WILDS and reality shows, particularly controversial teen reality show KID NATION (2007). Although these scenarios speak to apocalyptic climate anxiety, we find nuggets of hope in the ways the teens join together to help everyone survive; the queer love that thrives in all three shows; and the fact that here, in the present, we have the ability to organize for a Green New Deal and avert the apocalypse.  For this episode, we recommend you first watch and/or have general familiarity with THE WILDS Season 1, streaming on Prime Video; THE SOCIETY Season 1, streaming on Netflix; and DAYBREAK Season 1, streaming on Netflix. FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL | instagram, tumblr, tiktok: @leftistteendrama | twitter: @leftyteendrama | website: leftistteendrama.com _ ABOUT US: MARIA DIPASQUALE (she/her; host/editor) is a Brooklyn-based union communicator and writer who watches too much TV. Follow Maria on Twitter @Maria_DiP26, IG @mdzip, and tiktok @marialovesunions. In addition to Leftist Teen Drama, Maria hosts Bodysuits For Bughead: A Riverdale Podcast | tumblr: @bodysuitsforbughead twitter: @B4B_Podcast instagram: @bodysuits4bughead EMMA ROSE (she/her; recurring guest) watches a lot—and she means a lot—of reality tv, with the occasional teen drama or murder mystery or sci-fi thriller thrown in for good measure. When she's not watching said television, you can find her listening to podcasts and diving into internet content about said television. Sometimes she posts on instagram @emmaaaaaroseeeee (5 a's and 5 e's) DONDRÉ TAYLOR-STEWART (he/him; recurring guest) is a television writer in Los Angeles where he splits his time between writing, adult content creation and obsessively listening to R&B deep cuts like it's 1996. IG: oxtail.papi TWITTER: dondrenesta MADDY WIRYO (they/them; art) is an artist who works all around New England. You can find more of their work at: maddyworldfr.wordpress.com JEFF MCHALE (he/him; producer) is an extremely online guy who plays games, streams sometimes, and loves talking old TV. Maria and Jeff's good union cats CLARENCE and VINNY may make an appearance and/or be mentioned.  intro song: Stomping the Room by Delicate Beats  All opinions shared on this show are that of individuals and do not represent the views of any organization we may be affiliated with. _ SOURCES DISCUSSED IN THE EPISODE:  A Planet To Win: Why We Need A Green New Deal by Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos (with foreword by Naomi Klein) The New York Times, August 9, 2021, A Hotter Future Is Certain, Climate Panel Warns. But How Hot Is Up to Us. Vox, July 21, 2021, Extreme heat is killing American workers  Politico, September 20, 2021, Biden administration to write workplace safety rule tackling heat stress The New York Times, August 25, 2007, ‘Kid Nation' Lesson: Be Careful What You Pitch  The AV Club, March 10, 2020, Bonanza City, revisited: The pioneers of Kid Nation remember the controversial reality show Kid Nation trailer  Sunrise Movement's Green New Deal definition _ SUGGESTED FURTHER READING/LISTENING: plug in to…Sunrise Movement plug in to…DSA Ecosocialists It Could Happen Here podcast

When we hear about the Green New Deal, it is almost always in context to policy and business within the United States. The urgent push for an energy transition away from fossil fuels often obscures the reality of extractive frontiers and the supply chains that green energy necessitates. This week, we slow down and explore the structures behind “our” energy systems, what a Green New Deal means for “resource-rich” countries in the Global South, and what a globally accountable Green New Deal could look like with guest Thea Riofrancos. As we explore what a renewable energy transition looks like from the so-called peripheries of extraction, Thea guides us to think about the relationship between solidarity and consumption, collectivity, and the vital importance of pushing for policy, systems, and organizations that empower public services, forms of sharing, and economies of care. Thea Riofrancos is an assistant professor of political science at Providence College, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and a Radcliffe Institute Fellow. Her research focuses on resource extraction, renewable energy, climate change, green technology, social movements, and the left in Latin America. These themes are explored in her book, Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador and her co-authored book, A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal. Music by 40 Million Feet, Mitski, and Alexa Wildish. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.

This week Grace speaks to Thea Riofrancos, Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College and author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador. They discuss the findings of the IPCC's latest report, whether it's possible to imagine a green transition within capitalist social relations, and how the Left can chart a path to decarbonization that doesn't compromise the Earth's other natural systems and communities. You can support our work on the show by becoming a Patron. Thanks to our producer Conor Gillies and the Lipman-Miliband Trust for making this episode possible.

Grace speaks to Thea Riofrancos, Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College and author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador. They discuss the findings of the IPCC's new report, whether it's possible to imagine a green transition within capitalist social relations, and how the left can chart a path to decarbonisation that doesn't compromise the earth's other natural systems or communities. You can support our work on the show by becoming a Patron, where you'll also get access to full versions of the interviews.

In the second part of our conversation and collaboration with the Coffee with Comrades podcast, we begin seeking out works of literature, cinema, and scholarship that might illuminate Anti-Anti-Utopian blueprints for building new worlds. As Matt remarks, it's virtually impossible to come up with a list of films that would be called utopian, but Pearson argues that you could – in fact – come up with a robust list of fiction and non-fiction texts that spell out the shape of this new genre of hope-making. A developmental syllabus of Anti-Anti-Utopian study may start with Ursula K. Le Guin's iconic and epic “ambiguous utopia,” The Dispossessed (1974), and include Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy of novels (1992-96), as well as  nonfiction books like Erik Olin Wright's Envisioning Real Utopias (2010), Alex Williams & Nick Srnicek's Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work (2015), and A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal by Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos (2019). These visions of still imperfect, but radically more just & egalitarian worlds teach us that striving toward the utopian horizon is neither naive nor impractical, but instead all too necessary and prudent, especially now. As such, The Golden Square affirms that the decommodification of life and democratization of society are not just revolutionary goals, but in fact, the revolutionary project itself. Beyond the ceaseless academic obsessions with diagramming the corpse of our dystopian hellscape, we must chart a path outside our pyramid-shaped cages by realizing the unconditional rights to food, shelter, healthcare, and education for every person on earth – a readymade threshold separating us from the Utopian Sphere. Moving outward, Pearson, Jesse and Matt talk about the key planks that might make up the political philosophy of Anti-Anti-Utopia and how charting an emancipatory path forward requires an intersectional anti-capitalist compass magnetized to the many symbiotic, multilectical transformations necessary to abolish empire. As Matt has been fond of saying of late: “Be like an anarchist,” first and foremost. Comprehensive Show Notes Can Be Found at thefutureisamixtape.com Feel Free to Contact Jesse & Matt on the Following Spaces & Places: thefutureisamixtape@gmail.com Facebook Twitter Instagram Support Coffee with Comrades on Patreon, follow them on Twitter and Instagram, and visit their website.

COVID has in many ways monopolized the public imagination in the last year or so, and at times it’s seemed like many other conversations were put on hold — or at least had their volume turned down. Now, with the threats of COVID subsiding — at least in the U.S., and at least for the time being — we’re remembering some of the other important conversations that need to be picked up again. Perhaps the most pressing of all is the conversation around climate change. In this Conversation, we spoke with Thea Riofrancos, Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, and co-author, along with Kate Aronoff, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Alyssa Battistoni, of "A Planet to Win: why we need a green new deal," published by Verso. In this conversation, Thea gives us an update on where we are on climate change — and what the Biden administration is proposing to do about it (spoiler alert: it’s not nearly enough). We also talk about the problems with neoliberal attempts to address climate change, how capitalism is at the heart of the climate crisis, and why we need a Green New Deal. Upstream theme music is composed by Robert Raymond Intermission music is "In Our Talons” by Bowerbirds Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media: facebook.com/upstreampodcast twitter.com/upstreampodcast instagram.com/upstreampodcast You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcast and Spotify: Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/upst…am/id1082594532 Spotify: spoti.fi/2AryXHs

COVID has in many ways monopolized the public imagination in the last year or so, and at times it’s seemed like many other conversations were put on hold — or at least had their volume turned down. Now, with the threats of COVID subsiding — at least in the U.S., and at least for the time being — we’re remembering some of the other important conversations that need to be picked up again. Perhaps the most pressing of all is the conversation around climate change. In this Conversation, we spoke with Thea Riofrancos, Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, and co-author, along with Kate Aronoff, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Alyssa Battistoni, of "A Planet to Win: why we need a green new deal," published by Verso. In this conversation, Thea gives us an update on where we are on climate change — and what the Biden administration is proposing to do about it (spoiler alert: it’s not nearly enough). We also talk about the problems with neoliberal attempts to address climate change, how capitalism is at the heart of the climate crisis, and why we need a Green New Deal. Upstream theme music is composed by Robert Raymond Intermission music is "In Our Talons” by Bowerbirds Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media: facebook.com/upstreampodcast twitter.com/upstreampodcast instagram.com/upstreampodcast You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcast and Spotify: Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/upst…am/id1082594532 Spotify: spoti.fi/2AryXHs

Is the AFL-CIO falling in love with the Democratic Socialists of America? Why is DSA's PRO Act campaign drawing praise from unlikely allies in mainstream unions, the Democratic establishment, and beyond? What have these young socialists figured out about organizing towards working-class power? And why did this campaign come from [checks notes] DSA's Green New Deal campaign committee?Guido joins Daniel Denvir, host of The Dig Radio from Jacobin magazine, to investigate DSA's groundbreaking organizing effort to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO Act) Act.FIRST, The Dig interviews Gustavo Gordillo and Sydney Ghazarian from DSA's GND campaign committee on the origins and tactics of their PRO Act campaign.AFTER THE BREAK, Dan joins Guido for a very special, all-DSA Group Chat to chop it up on movement strategy and labor history with Green New Deal campaign committees members Thea Riofrancos and Ashik Siddique.Join DSA's PRO Act campaign here: pro-act.dsausa.orgSupport The Dig Radio: https://www.patreon.com/thedigReadings and references:House Democrats Pass Bill That Would Protect Worker Organizing EffortsThe Dig Radio: We Need the PRO Act with Jimmy WilliamsHow the filibuster goes downThe racist roots of Right-to-WorkTo win a Green New Deal, pass the PRO ActWHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON, by Thomas Geoghegan

Arun and Julia discuss the challenges of climate justice, climate denial, extractivism and misinformation. They are joined by Thea Riofrancos, Ketan Joshi and Harjeet Singh. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any content at https://www.patreon.com/committeeprogram or https://www.fans.fm/committee. Members have early access to podcast episodes, Committee Program merch, exclusive content and more! Watch our show every Monday at 3pm ET/12pm PT on the Nomiki Konst YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/KonstNomiki

On this episode Mark talks with Thea Riofrancos. Thea is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Providence College, and author of two essential reads on the challenges facing global left movements today: 'Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador' and 'A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal.' Mark and Thea discuss why the Left in Ecuador fractured under the progressive Correa government starting in 2007, and the role resource extraction played in those divisions. As Riofrancos explains, this intra-left conflict isn't just about political strategy or economic inclinations -- it's also about competing visions of modernity, and it has lessons for progressive movements around the world. You can learn more about 'Resource Radicals' and 'A Planet to Win' https://www.dukeupress.edu/resource-radicals (here) and https://www.versobooks.com/books/3107-a-planet-to-win (here). You can learn more about the Watson Institute's full network of podcasts https://watson.brown.edu/news/podcasts (here).

Photo: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks at a press conference about the Green New Deal. 0:08 – A stunning new video investigation by the Marshall Project and the New York Times examined hundreds of flights used by ICE to transport and deport detained immigrants, exposing and infecting those detained with the coronavirus, and spreading Covid-19 around the world. Barbara Marcolini (@babimarcolini) is a journalist on the visual investigations team at the New York Times, and Emily Kassie (@emilykassie) is the director of visual projects at the Marshall Project. 0:34 – It's tax day! Taxes are due today, Wednesday July 15. We take your calls and tax questions with Susan Lee, tax preparer and Certified Financial Planner, and the former host of “You and Your Money” on WBAI in New York. Susan shares wisdom about filing extensions — which are also due today — and we talk about anti-war tax resisters. 1:08 – Joe Biden has dropped a $2 trillion climate plan, drawing from many ideas in the Green New Deal. Political scientist Thea Riofrancos says the price tag on Biden's plan is promising, because climate response will warrant massive investment — but says he overrelies on promises to only use green technology that is “made in America,” which will slow the world's climate response while the planet has less than 10 years to reduce carbon emissions and get on track to a 1.5º C temperature increase. Riofrancos is assistant professor of Political Science at Providence College and author of the forthcoming book Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador. 1:34 – Can Oakland schools possibly safely reopen? We host a discussion with Keith Brown, president of the Oakland Education Association, and Roseann Torres, who represents District 5 on the Oakland Unified School Board. The post New investigation shows ICE spreading coronavirus around the world; Thea Riofrancos on how Joe Biden's climate plan misses the mark; and can Oakland schools safely reopen? appeared first on KPFA.