In Our Backyard Podcast

Darya Minovi, MPH, is a CPR Policy Analyst. She is a public health advocate passionate about environmental justice and the use of research to inform policies that protect human health and safeguard the environment. This is our last episode on the topic of the Winston-Salem Fertilizer plant fire. This one is centered around the public and environmental health surrounding it. With Darya we talk abou...

Sidney A. Shapiro is the Frank U. Fletcher Chair in Law at  Wake Forest University and Vice-President at the Center for Progressive Reform. We talk further about the Winston-Salem fertilizer plant disaster that happened earlier this year. You can listen to the past two episodes to get further details on the disaster. With Sidney we talk about his personal experience with the evacuation, the d...

In our last episode with David Flores we spoke all about the disaster in Winston-Salem NC that just occured where nearly 600 tons of ammonium nitrate caught fire at the Weaver fertilizer plant on Jan. 31 and burned for four days . The risk of explosion was so great that Winston-Salem officials asked people to evacuate within a mile radius, temporarily displacing 6,000 residents. Now with Deena Tum...

David Flores, J.D., is a CPR Senior Policy Analyst. He joined CPR in 2016 to work on climate adaptation policy and advocacy. We talk specifically about the disaster in Winston-Salem NC that just occurred where nearly 600 tons of ammonium nitrate caught fire at the Weaver fertilizer plant on Jan. 31 and burned for four days . The risk of explosion was so great that Winston-Salem officials asked peo...

Therese Vick is the NC Sustainable Economic Development Coordinator/ Community Organizer for us here at BREDL. Community groups, especially our BREDL chapters, often use air monitoring as a tool for organizing. They are often concerned about the quality of the air they breathe and how it may affect their health or the health of family and friends. With smaller, low-cost sensors available, groups h...

Leanna Powell is the Director of Development and Communications at Blue Water Baltimore whose mission is to restore the quality of Baltimore’s rivers, streams and Harbor to foster a healthy environment, a strong economy and thriving communities. For too long, Baltimore’s waterways have been plagued by trash , toxins , sewage , and polluted stormwater . These problems do more than harm our environm...

Geeta Kapur is a civil rights attorney and an activist; she is an alumna of UNC-Chapel Hill and its law school. She is also the author of the book about UNC, "To Drink from the Well: The Struggle for Racial Equality at the Nation's Oldest Public University." With Geeta we talk about her experience attending UNC for undergrad and law school, the racial history of UNC, environmental racism, and what...

Lyndsey Gilpin is the founder + executive editor of Southerly. Southerly is a nonprofit that serves communities in the South who face environmental injustice and are most at risk of the effects of climate change. They do this by equipping them with the journalism, resources, and information they need to make their communities healthier and safer, to hold power to account, and to have agency over t...

This is the final episode to finish out the Real Cost of Nuclear season! And it’s all about how nuclear can’t solve the climate crisis. I talk with Don Safer, who is with the Tennessee Environmental Council and does local work with the Sierra Club. There are a lot of claims that nuclear can solve or be a bridge to the climate crisis - but in this episode we question if that is just the industry pr...

This is another re-release episode where I talk with Ralph Hutchinson who is the coordinator of The Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. OREPA is committed to nonviolence and believes in using every tool in the toolbox. Their main focus is stopping nuclear weapons production at the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and protecting the environment threatened by legacy and ongoi...

Ian Zabarte is the Principle Man of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians and works with the Native Community Action Council. He lives in Las Vegas, NV and has worked on nuclear issues for 30+ years. We specifically talk about Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, which is a proposed deep geological repository storage facility within Yucca Mountain to store spent nuclear fuel , in...

Dave Kraft is the Executive Director and co-founder of Nuclear Energy Information Service or NEIS for short. Dave was responsible for creating the “Know Nukes!” series of videos on nuclear topics in cooperation with CAN-TV Chicago; and is a co-founder of the Radiation Monitoring Project, designed to provide training and field monitors to communities contaminated by radioactive substances. With Dav...

Petuuche GIlbert tells his personal experience of living in the Grants Mining District in New Mexico and has been working on nuclear and mining issues for 30+ years. Petuuche is also an environmental and human rights activist as well as a member of the Multicultural Alliance for Safe Environment and President of the Indigenous World Association, a United Nations NGO. New Mexico has no nuclear powe...

This week I spoke with Maggie and Arnie Gundersen. Maggie is the president of Fairewinds Energy Education and Arnie is a nuclear engineer and expert witness he is also the chief engineer for Fairewinds Associates, Inc, paralegal services and expert testimony firm. They both previously worked in the nuclear industry when they both came to the conclusion that this is not the future they want to supp...

Hi everyone and welcome back to the In Our Backyard Podcast and if you’re new, welcome. In the Real Cost of Nuclear season, I thought I would start things out with a re-release episode with Kevin Kamps who is with Beyond Nuclear. He specializes in high-level waste management and transportation; new and existing reactors; decommissioning; Congress watch; climate change; and federal subsidies. We ta...

Hi everyone, it’s your host Jenn Galler and I’m back with another season of the In Our Backyard Podcast and it’s all about Nuclear Energy. We’ve heard pros and cons of what nuclear power can entail, and in this season I’ll be breaking down what the real costs of nuclear power are. From the mining of uranium, transportation of the fuel, the use of it, where the waste will go, and whether it’s a lon...

Jacqueline Fahrenholz is a rising second year master’s student at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. She is pursuing a dual master’s degree in Environmental Management focusing in Ecosystem Science and Conservation along with a master’s degree in Forestry. Jackie worked with BREDL as a GIS Specialist this past summer, helping the organization get familiarized with the program as...

Leija Helling is a Community Organizing Associate with Center for Health Environment and Justice (CHEJ). The campaign that she is working on is called Make Polluters Pay which is making polluting corporations pay for their contamination. To give some background, there are currently 1,388 toxic waste sites in the United States that are so dangerous they have been designated “Superfund” sites by the...

This week we will be diverting from the Youth in the Climate Season to bring you a bonus episode about the No Coal UNC rally happening today at UNC Chapel Hill. Today at 11, there will be a Kick off rally where people will be using their voices and presences to demand justice for the dirty coal that UNC is continuing to burn. You can listen to episodes 3 on the Road to Renewable Season with Jovita...

This episode is a re-release from a few months ago where I talk with Nick Trombetta who is a part of the Sunrise Movement which is a youth movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. They’re building an army of young people to make climate change an urgent priority across America, end the corrupting influence of fossil fuel executives on our politics, and elect...

Madeline Parker is from NC Warn. Madeline is a Youth Climate Justice Organizer, which is an arm of the organization that was created in 2017. Their intention is to further develop and deepen NC WARN’s commitment to actively involving youth in the fight for climate justice and against the climate crisis, working both in school settings and out in the general community. We are all impacted by the cl...

This week I’m bringing you a very special episode because it is, Lou Zeller, our Executive Director at Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League last week with us as he retires. This month is also marking his 35-year career with BREDL including nine years as executive director. BREDL’s founding principles of earth stewardship, environmental democracy, social justice and community empowerment is the...

Margot Franchini is a high school senior from Chapel Hill in North Carolina, Margot is apart of Earth Uprising, a youth led organization who describe themselves as “team of young people who want to save the planet.” They have strong values and principles, some of which are to “listen, believe and act on science and scientific facts,” use “ non-violent” words and actions, and be inclusive of all et...

Last week, we wrapped up our Road to Renewables season and wow what amazing variety of people we got to speak with. We are now following the season up with our new topic, Youth in the Climate Movement. We will be talking to all sorts of experts and people on the ground about the action being made amongst the young millennial and generation Z. We are kicking off the season by chatting with Amelia C...

Hi everyone, it’s your host, Jenn Galler, and I am back for a new season and it’s all about Youth in the Climate Movement. We will be investigating what millennials and generation Z are doing to contribute to and really lead the climate movement forward. Within the season, we hear from an array of youth who are refusing to sit passively by and are stepping up to take action to protect the future o...