The Response

Anyone who's been in a disaster and experienced the initial government or major nonprofit response may have noticed that there's a lot of waste involved. From the thousands of single-use water bottles and throw-away medical supplies to the constant churning of diesel and gas-powered generators, there's just really no other option. But what if there was? Would it be adopted? How could these large d...

On today's show we're continuing our ongoing Disaster Dispatch series with a deep dive into the Maui wildfires. Earlier this month a series of wind-driven wildfires in Hawaii, predominantly in Maui, led to widespread devastation and destruction, killing at least 115 people and leaving 850 others missing in the town of Lāhainā. These numbers are estimated to actually be much higher as the search to...

This summer has truly turned out to be a hot labor summer, with a number of high-profile labor actions stretching across industries and across the country, from the streets of Hollywood to the shop floors at UPS — things are heating up.  With that said, there is a story that hasn't hit headlines in the same way as some of these other actions and confrontations. And that's the story of Anchor Brewe...

All across the globe, temperatures are rising, and thanks to the most recent report published by the International Panel on Climate Change and recent U.N. projections, we know that even if we do make sweeping cuts to emissions, we're still on course for a catastrophic temperature rise of 2.7 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. That means, the record-breaking floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, and...

On our last show, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Land Back with David Cobb — specifically, we discussed moving the idea of land back from a metaphor to a reality, by focusing on a specific case in northern California where the city of Eureka actually gave 200 acres of land back to its original stewards, the Wiyot tribe.  On today's episode, we're going to continue the conversation, and, in...

The idea of Land Back — a growing movement to return occupied land to the Indigenous people that it rightfully belongs to, often exists as a metaphor for us. It can feel like the discussion around land theft and genocide by settler-colonists in the United States is often limited to land acknowledgments or statements of solidarity — both of which are important. But what about the most important ele...

Today on the show we've brought on Alex Press , a staff writer at Jacobin Magazine , to explore labor power — specifically, looking at how the strengthening of the labor movement through unions, strikes, and other workplace actions, are serving as a response to not only the harms inflicted by neoliberalism, but also, how these institutions and actions can serve as direct responses to climate chang...

Last week, the skies over much of the east coast of the United States were orange, red, and almost entirely blacked out in some regions. Smoke from wildfires raging up north in Canada blew down to engulf many major U.S. cities in an apocalyptic glow that left New York City with the worst air quality in the world.   For those of us in California, seeing the apocalyptic images from the east coast go...

Today on the show we've brought on  Lee Shevek , an anarchist, writer, and domestic violence researcher. Pride Month is just around the corner and we thought it would be a good time to take a deep dive into the reactionary politics side of this show — namely, the attacks from the right wing and from the state against our transgender comrades. States like Texas, Florida, and Missouri are on the fro...

Today on the show we've brought on Daniel Baryon , an anarchist and organizer who runs the Youtube channel Anark .  When we talk about horizontal power structures, for example in the context of grassroots mutual aid response, we're talking about a concept situated within a very specific theoretical framework. Likewise, when we explore the concepts of "prefiguring" the new world within the old — pr...

On this episode of The Response we've brought on Joey Ayoub, a Geneva-based writer, researcher, activist, and host of The Fire These Times podcast, which asks the questions: How do we build the new in the shell of the old? How do we tackle global warming and its associated crises? How do we build bonds across nation-states and groups? How do we make it easier to imagine the end of capitalism than...

Today on the show we've brought on Breya Johnson , an abortion doula, reproductive justice organizer, writer, curator, and the Deputy Director of Organizing at Girls for Gender Equity .   Since the Dobbs decision was passed last year, we've continued to see the right wing's assault on legal abortion and bodily autonomy escalate. Most recently through a ruling by a Trump-appointed, anti-abortion Fe...

Today on the show we've brought on Konstantin — a Parisian garbage collector and union militant. For the past two months, France has been in a state of agitation. A growing movement of workers has been engaged in protests and strikes which erupted in Paris and other cities in response to President Emmanuel Macron unilaterally raising the French retirement age from 62 to 64. You may have seen the v...

Today on the show we've brought on Jesse Barnett , a musician and a co-founder of All Power Books in L.A. All Power Books is more than a bookstore: it's a volunteer-run community space that offers a wide range of programs, from a free store with food, cleaning supplies, and menstrual products; to a free community clinic; to music classes, poetry readings, and reading groups; sewing and repair work...

In this documentary episode, we take a deep dive into how communities are responding to the growing abortion access crisis in the United States, sharing the stories of those impacted and highlighting a number of radical grassroots, mutual aid, and solidaristic efforts aimed at helping people access abortion in the places where it's currently outlawed or restricted.  Abortion access has always been...

Today on the show — a special presentation of a live conversation between Saket Soni and Rebecca Solnit on Saket Soni's new book, The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America .   The Great Escape is the harrowing story of how 500 disaster relief workers from India were trafficked to the United States under false pretenses and exposed to inhumane conditions while r...

Today on the show, we've brought on Prem Thakker , a journalist with The New Republic who has been reporting on East Palestine, Ohio. Prem's recent piece is titled: " Life After the Ohio Train Derailment: Trouble Breathing, Dying Animals, and Saying Goodbye. "   In this episode, we'll bring you up to date on everything happening in the aftermath of the February 3rd train derailment — from the heal...

Today on the show we've brought on Rebecca Burns , co-author of the recent piece in The Lever , Rail Companies Blocked Safety Rules Before Ohio Derailment .   On February 3rd, 150-car train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. The train was carrying several cars of vinyl chloride, an extremely hazardous and toxic chemical used in plastics manufacturing. The derailment triggered a gigantic fireball, w...

Today on the show we've brought on Andy C. from Poor Prole's Almanac to talk about a wide range of fascinating topics — from agroecology and sound ecological practices regarding the growing of food and the stewardship of land, to native seed bombing and other forms of mutual aid and disaster preparation, to the difference between right-wing prepperism and left-wing prepperism, to why building coll...

For the past couple of years, the City of Atlanta, George, has been pushing forward a project nicknamed "Cop City" — a tactical training compound featuring a mock city which has been referred to as a kind of war base where police will learn military-style maneuvers. The 90 million dollar compound would be built on somewhere between 60 and 300 acres of forest in Atlanta — a space known as the Weela...

From a chicken coop providing omelet breakfasts to underserved communities, to a network of farms stretching from Oakland to East Palo Alto, to a night watch program aimed at keeping the police accountable and protecting marginalized communities from police violence, to providing grassroots disaster relief during the most recent storms in the Bay Area — The Hood Squad seems to do it all.  In this...

Today on the show, we've brought on Douglas Rushkoff to talk about his new book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires . Douglas is Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at Queens/CUNY and a research fellow at the Institute for the Future. Named one of the world's ten most influential intellectuals by MIT, he hosts the Team Human podcast and has written many...

How do we respond to natural disasters? What comes to mind? Large relief organizations like the American Red Cross? Or perhaps the Federal Emergency and Management Agency? Well, those images are certainly part of the story — but they're not the whole story. In our new podcast series,  The Response , we aim to share a perspective that isn't extensively covered in the mainstream media. Specifically,...

Today on the show, we've brought on Genean from Common Humanity Collective — a mutual aid organization based out of California's Bay Area. When the pandemic began in 2020, it felt like there was a huge spike in mutual aid efforts — in fact we did an entire series of episodes on many of the community-led responses to COVID that year including an audio documentary that highlighted the work done by a...

This week, we're bringing you the first installment of a new series that we'll occasionally produce: Disaster Dispatches. Each dispatch focuses on a specific disaster and will feature a short conversation with someone within or near a specific disaster zone who can provide insight into how things look on the ground and, in many cases, share first-hand accounts of the response. First up, we have Me...