Extinction Rebellion Radio

What is climate change doing to the planet, and the humans and animals who live on it, right now? We answer this question listing some of the major floods, fires, and fatalities of recent months, skipping ahead to the latest heat waves that broiled Europe and spoiled July 4 celebrations in much of the United States.

With the help of one of the world's leading scholars on international relations, we try to re-think the concept of national security for a climate changed world. As the world sees one climate catastrophe after another, it becomes clear that the things we care about cannot be secured by people with guns. So how can we secure it? Also we look at the Russia-Ukrainian border through the lens of climat...

Lee Raymond was one of the great mass murderers in the history of the world. A longtime executive, President, and CEO of ExxonMobi and the mastermind of climate denialist misinformation, he was an ecocidal lunatic who seemed to believe in making more money No Matter What, even if it killed millions and made the world burn. Good riddance, Lee Raymond, and other climate news.

This week, there's a supposed-maybe-hinted-at 'deal' with Iran that's getting more sustained attention than the last time there was supposedly a 'deal' with Iran. Even if this agreement does materialize, there's a whole lot of reasons to doubt that it's going to work. This episode explains seven of those reasons.

We're back to active hostilities in and around the Strait of Hormuz. We're back to very active hostilities in Lebanon and Gaza. In looking at the fallout, the second half of this episode argues that the inflationary pressure from fossil fuels is stronger than central banks can contain. Even interest rate hikes and currency interventions aren't enough to keep inflation down when fossil fuel prices...

The United States is losing the Iran War. They tried to prompt a popular uprising, to change the regime, to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, to extract a promise of no nuclear enrichment. All that has failed. Iran actually extended its fuel blockade to the Emirati port outside the Strait. Now the Trump administration is trying to claim the war is over, even as the missiles continue to fly. This isn't...

Ben Leffel, public policy professor, was with us last episode to talk about cities making efforts to cut their emissions. Those were the good guys in the story. This week we get to the bad guys: climate lobbyists seeking profits, and climate deniers.

Ben Leffel, who researches climate policy for a living, is with us for two episodes. This is the first, mainly about cities and what city governments can do on climate. It's probably more than you think. These are the good guys in the story. Next week's episode features the bad guys.

This week we complete our conversation with Shooka Bidarian, Environmental Correspondent for Marjan Television, an Iranian news network not based outside of Iran. We hear about that time that every Democrat in the U.S. Senate voted against basic climate action - that was the Kyoto protocol. And another extreme weather event, this one in British Columbia. It was the most expensive natural disaster...

Besides the war, Iran is in deep crisis over climate change. Climate is severely impacting the country ecologically and politically. Our guest is Shooka Bidarian is Environmental Correspondent for Marjan Television, a Farsi-language network based in London. She received the Alfredo Sirkis Memorial Green award for her work on our climate crisis. With Shooka, Alycee and Matthew explore how global he...

In this episode we further reflect, process, try to comprehend how the President's threat to wipe out an entire civilization has weakened the United States and the world. It's weakened it economically, militarily, but above all morally. No one thinks he was joking. What does it mean for humanity that the threat to wipe out a civilization has occurred by someone who has the power to do it? Where do...

Let's pose the question: What is more unstable? The mind of the President of the United States, or the global supply of fossil fuels? Recent events have shown that both are highly, highly unstable. The President's profanity-laced social media posts threatening to wipe out an entire civilization comes at the very same time as the real possibility that Australia or Asian countries will run out of fu...

In this episode we talk about some expected and unexpected bits of fallout from the climate crisis. One unexpected bit is what could happen to coffee shops and the social interaction that happens around them if, as expected, we lose a huge amount of the viable land that goes toward coffee cultivation. This isn't just a worry for latte-sippers. Cafes are almost the only indoor daytime social spaces...

This installment in our occasional series on climate disasters covers the early part of winter 2025 into 2026, including the massive winter storm that pummeled and froze solid the eastern half of the United States"yes that was linked to climate change, including Iran literally running out of water long before the current war, and much more. Storm after storm, flood after flood, wildfire after wild...

A big grant for J.D. Vance's favorite Ohio factory to convert from one fossil fuel to another, warming oceans so soup-thick with mucus that sunlight can't penetrate them, police attacking migrant small boats utterly failing to understand the problem, and much more in this commentary on climate news.

Many analysts predict that oil prices and general inflation will go back down after the Iran war ends. This episode argues that's wrong, for three main reasons: First, a hostile posture will continue for the next generation even if the bombing stops. There is no real off-ramp into long-term peace. Second, world authorities have already tried unprecedented measures to hold prices down and failed. T...

One of the countries Iran bombed in retaliation for the Israeli-U.S. attack is Azerbaijan. This country exports oil that doesn't need to go through the Strait of Hormuz. It has water supply tensions with Iran going back years, and these tensions are caused by climate change. This week we speak with perhaps the leading water expert in the country to bring you an angle on the Iran conflict entirely...

This episode makes three points that aren’t getting explained well in the media coverage or in social media discussions. First, this is about fossil fuels. Iran and the Straight of Hormuz that it controls would be infinitely less strategic, and the fallout of this war infinitely less severe for other countries, were it not for our deep reliance on oil and gas. Second, there’s not really an off-ram...

We offer a climate-oriented response to Trump's most recent State of the Union address. In contrast to the opposition party's response, this one has no poll testing, no superficial point-scoring seeking votes or quotes, and no partisanship. We talk about the bloody rhetoric, the in-chamber ceremonies, and the little bit of policy President Trump mentioned to explain why he did it this way. 

In this interview Larry Ward, author of the book America's Racial Karma, connects his Buddhist analysis of race in the United States to the climate crisis. The conversation shows how the suffering of the earth entangles with the patterns of America's struggles with race; both proceed from acquisitive intentions. Larry passed away last year, 2025. Rest in peace and rest in power.

Let's talk about Greenland, before everybody forgets about it. Less than a month ago, the United States was almost in a military standoff with eight European countries, two of them nuclear powers. The E.U. was threatening to cut off all trade with the United States, which would have caused a depression on both sides of the Atlantic. And NATO, the biggest alliance on the globe, might now be caput....

The world is beset by floods, fires, inundations, mudslides, landslides, gas explosions, on and on. We chronicle them here to share with the world just how extensive this is, at present, right now. It's somewhat mesmerizing to listen to. This episode covers approximately the end of summer 2025.

Delhi, the capital city of India, has the worst air quality ever measured. The super-massive carbon emissions make the daily air as gray as fog. This week we talk with Yukti Singh, a physician born and raised in Delhi, who grew up breathing this air. Not only does she have first hand information about it that's interesting, and enough medical expertise to explain what this does to a human body, bu...

We're still digesting the recent events in Venezuela. There is way too much to say not to do a second episode about it. Last week we argued this was straight up colonization. This week I'm challenging listeners a little bit by suggesting that because this new oil imperialism is so clear cut without pretext and without claiming any redeeming factors, this is easier to oppose than the older imperial...

What's happening in Venezuela is colonization for oil. There's no secret agenda, they're not hiding it, it's what they say it is: an attempt at direct control of the largest reserve of oil in the world. It's backed up by a naval blockade and a threatened invasion. The Trump administration isn't saying this behind closed doors but right out in the open, on global television. This week's episode sta...