environment

Border-wall / declaration of "emergency" protests, and an interview with the Center for Biological Diversity on the environmental impact of the border wall and immigration policies

A rare and pristine ecosystem in Arizona is scheduled for demolition, thanks to a last-minute rider attached to a finance bill by Arizona senator John McCain that awarded the Oak Flats region to an Australian mining company. The land is sacred to the San Carlos Apaches, whose organization, Apache Stronghold, is leading the fight to stop the mine. They held a rally in Tucson to kick-off a two=week intensive campaign, culminating in a large protest gathering at Oak Flats in late February. We have audio from the rally, and an interview with Apache Stronghold spokesperson Wentsler Nosey/

Every year that I am able I pay a visit to Big Sur, California, one of my favorite places since I was very small. I love the scenic drive up the rugged coast on the winding WPA-era highway One through the land where the mountains meet the sea. You've seen it in car commercials, and the famous chase scene from North by Northwest, and the picture in your mind, no doubt, is of the azure Pacific waters glistening in the sun as waves lap the rocky coast line below sloping Emerald meadows. As a kid I took all of this for granted, but I gradually came to realize that the ribbon of highway isn't the only feature there that is foreign to the natural landscape. The fact is that those brilliant swaths of Green shouldn't be there – and they wouldn't be were it not for the small herds of cows that regularly scour the fenced-in private ranches, allowing grasses to flourish where once there were coastal prairies and thickets of woods. The fact is that the Big Sur we have all seen in pictures and post cards for as long as we can remember is, in reality, a severely altered landscape, some of whose most iconic features are the result of large scale human-caused damage. In that sense, Big Sur, as we know it, is a perfect metaphor for the much larger environmental crisis facing the American prairies of the South and MidWest , and the way we have grown to accept the destructive agricultural practice known as “ranching” as an immutable facet of the American identity.

Recently passed legislation traded a culturally and environmentally significant area within the Tonto National Forest to a foreign-owned mining company in exchange for less desirable parcels of land in Arizona. The planned Copper mine at Oak Flats will destroy an area several miles square. The San Carlos Apaches who have strong ancestral ties to the area being threatened, are organizing to prevent its destruction.

The Ohio Senate just passed a bill that effectively guts the state's 6 year old energy policy that included renewable energy mandates. We speak with the Sierra Club's Jen Miller about the implications, and we hear the arguments from the Senate's leading fossil fuel proponent, Energy

Jane Goodall gave a presentation recently at the All Saints Presbyterian church in Pasadena California one of the most powerful, well- delivered, urgent, yet optimistic speeches about environmental justice you are likely to hear.

The Trans Pacific Partnership ( "TPP") is a new "free trade" agreement being pushed by the Obama administration that critics say would allow an unaccountable consortium of transnational corporations to over-rule local laws in the U.S. and other participating nations. Indeed, the language of the proposal spells it out explicitly, yet it is being "fast-tracked" through Congress and its details have only recently been leaked. Lori Wallach, of Public Citizen explains.

Last week as many as 1,000 people marched in downtown Columbus to protest against the biotech company Monsanto. We have audio from the rally and we take a look at monsanto's history dating back to Agent Orange and up to this week's banning of GMO crops by Peru. We hear from Canadian farmer Percy Scmeiser who lost a lawsuit against Monsanto and we look at the impact of neonicotenoid insecticides on the world's bee population.

Audio and commentary from the recent Open House encounter at the headquarters of the Wayne National Forest. Forest managers are hoping to lease parts of the forest for Fracking even before an environmental impact study (EIS) is done. Around 50 people attended to ask questions and voice concerns.