Everything is Fine in SWWA

This is a short episode with a special and urgent call-to-action asking listeners to support Kim Harless by taking some time to write or testify to the Charter Review Commission, demanding a charter amendment to make changes to the Salary Review Commission to RAISE THE PAY for Vancouver City Councilmembers and make this a full-time position so that people who want to serve are no longer locked out...

TRIGGER WARNING: This intro includes public testimony about suicide and housing insecurity trauma. Speakers from intro (by order of appearance): Fatima Abarta (spoken through interpreter), Kerri Burnside, Monica Zazueta, and Boyd West. Karissa and Phillip come together again for a discussion about State Senator Annette Cleveland’s recent death blow to rent stabilization in the legislature. We deep...

Karissa talks with Tiffani of House Our Neighbors, the organization that spearheaded the social housing initiative in Seattle. We dug into the state of the housing crisis, the truth about the affordable housing solutions always offered by developers and decision makers which never seem to solve the problem permanently and at scale, the fundamental issue with housing as a profit-making venture inst...

Karissa had the pleasure of sitting down with Zorah Oppenheimer, who is Executive Director of Clark Conservation District and member of the Steering Committee for the Heritage Farm Sustainability Plan. Now, when you hear the word “sustainability” you probably envision we’re talking about regenerative farming or something of that nature. NOPE! This is a plan for financial sustainability of the near...

Karissa is joined by a panel of interfaith leaders, including Shirin Elkoshairi, Dexter Kearny, and Zemirah Willow Higgins (all of SWWA) who have taken up the much-needed task of organizing for a ceasefire in Gaza IN VANCOUVER! Willow discusses how the Jewish community in SWWA and across the US is responding to the genocide in Gaza, and Dexter similarly shares about the Christian community’s respo...

Here is a wonderful interview with Pete Dubois of Clark County Composts! We talked all things food waste and compost, including common misconceptions and all of the ways you can save your food waste from the landfill with little effort and without even having to have your own home composting system. Pete also expresses the importance of following the food waste hierarchy and ways to reduce your gr...

Karissa shares her thoughts on Palestine. Journalists/groups recommended in the episode: Abby Martin/Media Roots Radio Rania Khalek Katie Halper Jewish Voice for Peace Great breakdown about Israel's lies thoroughly explored and released today by journalist Briahna Joy Gray: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS6lVAa1mfI Donate for Gaza emergency relief: Palestine Children's Relief Fund: https://www.p...

(Part 6) A continued investigation into the recent shenanigans of the railroad baron, Eric Temple. This is an additional 3-parter of the "Power and Money in Clark County" series about a county-sanctioned planned environmental disaster (on the scale of thousands of acres) along OUR PUBLIC RAILROAD, an irresponsible partnership with a lawless corporate bully, and a call-to-action for listeners to st...

(Part 5) A continued investigation into the recent shenanigans of the railroad baron, Eric Temple. This is an additional 3-parter of the "Power and Money in Clark County" series about a county-sanctioned planned environmental disaster (on the scale of thousands of acres) along OUR PUBLIC RAILROAD, an irresponsible partnership with a lawless corporate bully, and a call-to-action for listeners to st...

A continued investigation into the recent shenanigans of the railroad baron, Eric Temple. This is an additional 3-parter of the "Power and Money in Clark County" series about a county-sanctioned planned environmental disaster (on the scale of thousands of acres) along OUR PUBLIC RAILROAD, an irresponsible partnership with a lawless corporate bully, and a call-to-action for listeners to stand up ag...

Karissa and Phillip wrap up their conversation about how we might go about surfing this shitty apocalypse by discussing a group called Climate Defiance, who are doing the great civil disobedience work that this moment calls for to save our collective futures. They lay out a framework of priorities to help you assess where you can allocate your time and efforts to be the most effective in your clim...

For this episode, Karissa and Phillip look at the big picture of what and who the biggest greenhouse gas emitters are so that we can position ourselves to most effectively target our climate activism, which we will discuss further in Part 4 as we bring it back through the local lens. We discuss biggest emitters by institution, sector, nation, and class, beginning with revealing the top institution...

Intro by NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus. Shout out to LT Page, as always, for providing original music for the pod & for production assistance!

33. Surfing the Apocalypse, Part 1: Facing Climate Reality by Everything is Fine in SWWA

Karissa does a quick update and reflection on happy developments in the Rey Reynold's story, and what is coming up next for Everything is Fine in SWWA. More quality content coming up soon now that we've got more free time. Thank you so much for sticking around despite the inconsistent output from your working class comrades! See you soon! PS: Music showcase "Rodent's Revenge" by Customer Service R...

Phillip and Karissa had the pleasure of speaking with local dogged activist for all that is good, Leah Perkel, who is now taking the next step to advocate for Vancouver via a city council seat. We speak about her allyship with progressive indigenous millennial, Kim Harless, who won her election in 2021 despite many odds and a big money opponent through the power of the grassroots, and the moment t...

Karissa and Phillip come clean with their thoughts about Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of the 3rd US Congressional District in light of several disturbing votes she has cast in Congress, including her vote for the Resolution Denouncing the Horrors of Socialism, the vote to “Unleash American Energy”---aka unleash more oil and gas, and the vote to repeal the Biden administration’s cancellation of student...

Karissa sits down separately with two amazing LGBTQ+ advocates, David and Emily, to discuss two different local developments involving more queer targeting and hate speech. TRIGGER WARNING for the intro, as we play clips of hate speech from multiple Independent Fundamentalist Movement pastors who will be attending Aaron Thompson's Sure Foundation Church on Memorial Day weekend. There are multiple...

This is the third episode of the “Money and Power in Clark County” series, where Karissa and Phillip finally discuss the third candidate who was running against John Blom and Karen Bowerman for Clark County Council District 3, Jesse James. James, even though he ultimately didn’t win, is a shining example of people power versus corporate power because he finished just shy of Bowerman by under 3 per...

This is the second episode of the "Money and Power in Clark County" series, where Karissa and Phillip continue their conversation relating to the concrete batch plant saga by investigating how corporate interests have an obscene level of influence in our local government through the lens of the 2020 Clark County Council elections, particularly in the Karen Bowerman campaign. We detail our extensiv...

Today Phillip and Karissa partner together once again to discuss the saga of the concrete batch plant, which is the perfect case to use as a vehicle to evaluate our broken political system, detail by detail. In our previous episode, we talked about *what* happened, but in this series of episodes we discuss the disturbing answers to how and why it happened. This story goes FAR beyond this one incid...

For this episode, Karissa and Phillip interviewed Jan Kelly about the story of the proposed concrete batch plant and her work with Friends of Central Vancouver, a group who formed to mobilize against it. Friends of Central Vancouver is holding a Fund Raising Event on April 12th from 5:30pm to 8:30pm at Ghost Runner Brewery and is holding their next meeting on Friday, April 28th at 6pm at Cascades...

Today Karissa spoke with Alex Brennan, the Executive Director of Futurewise, an organization from Washington that believes the elements of a strong, resilient community are the same no matter its size. You should have a healthy home you can afford; be able to walk, bike, roll, and take transit where you need to go; have access to food from local farms; and enjoy stunning natural spaces and wildlif...

Today Karissa speaks with Kristin Edmark, a local climate ally who specializes in the movement to divest from fossil fuels. We discuss the Third Act effort to stop American banks from investing in environmental destruction. We also discuss how Washington state is still INSANELY investing peoples’ pensions (amounting to BILLIONS OF $) in fossil fuels, and the effort to change that being lead by a g...

Today’s episode is our second installment of our Legislative Session Series. We talk about the replacement levies that will be on your special election ballot if you are in the city. Ballots are out now and need turned in by February 14th! Spread some love on Valentine’s Day with your YES vote on both Prop 6 to fund Vancouver Public Schools and Prop 3 for the Affordable Housing Fund. We also discu...