In 1904, at the Bronx Zoological Park, chestnut trees were dying from a spore borne blight brought to the United States by Japanese chestnut trees that were imported by commercial nurseries. The American chestnut is now referred to as functionally extinct and forest where they were once the dominant species have long since transitioned from Oak chestnut to Oak hickory forests. In this episode of Breaking green, we will talk with Dr. Donald Davis, author of the American Chestnut: an...

On March 6th, Famed Civil Rights Lawyer, Dennis Cunningham died of cancer. He was 86. In his long and varied career Cunningham successfully represented Attica Prison Inmates, members of the Black Panthers. He also represented Earth First! organizers Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in a case they won against the FBI and Oakland police for violation of their civil rights when they were arrested after a car they were traveling in had a bomb detonate under the passenger seat nearly killing Bari....

Radioactive waste from the building of the first atomic bomb sits in a landfill with a below ground fire. Dawn Chapman who was featured in HBO's Atomic Homefront  tells Breaking Green how the EPA is again delaying removal seven years after agreeing to a new cleanup plan pressured by the community. Dawn and other activists from the region promise more pressure as they plan a trip to EPA headquarters as time runs out for a community they say is besieged with illness and childhood...

In this episode of Breaking Green we talk with long-time activist Alejandra Parra about her experiences during the People’s Uprising in Chile and the hopes of recognizing environmental, social and economic reforms in the new Chilean constitution. In 2019, Chile experienced intense nationwide protests against neoliberalism with calls for sweeping reform. In response the United Nations moved the UN Climate Change Conference COP 25 from Santiago, Chile to Madrid, Spain. In 2020 the people of...

 The UN Conference of Parties in Glasgow is now behind us.  Despite all the hype leading up to the meeting, did the Glasgow Pact provide results or did the nations of the world miss yet another opportunity for real change and hope for averting planet wide environmental disaster? Is Climate Change even a problem that can be addressed by the Nations of the world or are certain interests too entrenched within those systems to allow meaningful action by these political entities? In this episode...

As many nations promise net-zero emissions to fight climate change, corporate interests continue to promote offsets as opposed to the actual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at the source. So-called nature-based solutions promote a green economy that commodifies nature and reduces ecosystems to a balance sheet of commodities to be traded for license to destroy and pollute elsewhere. Now there is a proposal for Whale offsets. Breaking Green is produced by Global Justice Ecology...

Climate change threatens more catastrophic flooding, fires and even food insecurity. In response, agricultural companies are promoting what they call climate safe agriculture. But are huge agriculture companies concerned for our collective food future, or are they leveraging the very real threat of climate change to promote more industrial monocultures, genetically engineered crops and the capture of markets from smaller, independent and often indigenous farmers?  In this episode of...

In this episode of Breaking Green, we talk with  eminent environmental scientist, Dr. Michael Dorsey, about the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and current UN effort to address our collective future. The IPCC has issued a code red on climate change. The report states that there is an imminent risk of hitting the internationally agreed upon limit of 1.5 degrees in just decades and that immediate action is needed to avoid global warming's most dire consequences....

Breaking Green talks with biologist Dr. Rachel Smolker about false solutions to climate change.  The ravages of Global Climate Change are becoming more apparent every day, and people and nations are becoming more desperate for solutions. But there is increasing concern that agreements within the United Nations annual climate conferences are being driven by corporate interests that seek to monetize nature itself and secure corporate profits instead of addressing the root causes of climate...

Breaking Green interviews Orin Langelle, photojournalist and Co-founder of Global Justice Ecology Project, about carbon colonialism and the UN's program, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). REDD allows trading of the carbon stored in forests, mainly in the Global South, to offset emissions from polluters mainly in the Global North. It shifts the burden of these emissions from the polluters to Indigenous and rural communities that lose access to their forests...