Podcast
Lawless Planet
Hosted by Audible · EN
It’s not that hard to kill a planet. All it takes is a little drilling, some mining, a generous helping of pollution and voila! Earth over. When you take stock of what’s left, it starts to look like a crime scene: Decapitated mountains, poisoned rivers, oil-soaked pelicans, maybe a sun-bleached cow skull in a dried-up lake bed. The only thing missing is yellow caution tape. On each episode of Lawless Planet, host Zach Goldbaum reveals the scams, murders and cover-ups on the frontline of the climate crisis, and the life and death choices people are making to either protect our world – or destroy it.
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48episodes
Episodes
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The Unsolved Bombing of an Earth First! Activist
Jan 1900:40:16Summary readyIn the late 1980s, Judi Bari was a fearless activist building an alliance between loggers and environmentalists to save the last of California's old growth redwoods. The same traits that attracted followers to her movement, also made her a lot of enemies. In 1990, a bomb exploded in Judi’s car while she was driving. Somehow she survived – but then the FBI showed up and told her she was under arrest.Featured in this episode: Darryl CherneySources: Darryl Cherney’s documentary Who Bombed Judi Bari? Josh Richman’s reporting in High Country News: https://www.hcn.org/issues/issue-229/earth-firster-judi-bari-avenged-at-last/ Judi Bari’s book Timber WarsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
SummaryInside the Sting Operation to Catch Florida’s Alligator Thieves
Jan 1200:42:47Summary readyWhen Florida state wildlife officials begin to suspect that someone is illegally harvesting alligator eggs, they launch Operation Alligator Thief. At its heart: a veteran officer named Jeff Babauta, who delays his retirement to go deep undercover as a real Florida Man, hoping to infiltrate the insular world of gator farming.Featured in this episode:Jeff BabautaRebecca RennerSources:Rebecca Renner’s book Gator Country: Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the EvergladesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
SummaryThe Trash Ship That Became a Symbol of America’s Toxic Waste Problem
Jan 500:32:45Summary readyIn the 1980s, Philadelphia was in the midst of a trash crisis. A sanitation workers’ strike had left the city with an immense backlog of garbage. The solution: Ship it overseas, on a rusting cargo vessel called the Khian Sea. But when one country after another refused to take Philly’s waste, it turned the Khian Sea’s trash voyage into a trash odyssey, and shed light on a growing problem that critics came to call “garbage imperialism.”Featured in this episode:Kenny BrunoSources:Simone M. Müller’s book The Toxic ShipAlexander Clapp’s book Waste WarsPlanet Money’s reporting on the Mobro 4000: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/739893511See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Drilled: How Greenpeace Got Sued for the Standing Rock Protests
Dec 2900:43:58Summary readyToday, Lawless Planet brings you an episode from our friends at Drilled Media. Season 12 of their flagship podcast is called SLAPP’d, and it tells another side of a story we covered earlier in our episode “Surveillance and Sabotage on the Dakota Access Pipeline.”Greenpeace, which was only tangentially involved in the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, has been slapped with a $666 million bill for damages...despite the fact that DAPL was built, and has been making Energy Transfer millions of dollars for years. How did we get here? Cody Hall, an Indigenous water protector who was a key figure during the Standing Rock protests and was initially also targeted in Energy Transfer's suit, walks us through how things went down back in 2016 and 2017, and where this suit began.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
SummaryScamfluencers: The Solar Powered Scammer
Dec 2200:43:52Summary readyWe’re doing something different on Lawless Planet this week. We’re sharing an episode from our friends Scamfluencers — a show that unpacks the wildest true stories of high-profile scams and the con artists behind them.When Jeff Carpoff starts a business making portable solar generators, it becomes an instant hit among big corporations, Hollywood studios, and deep-pocketed investors. They think they’re getting a good deal on green energy – and a huge tax credit to go along with it. But Jeff’s clients don’t realize that he’s been playing them. And when he flies too close to the sun, it’ll blow the fuse on his whole operation.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
SummaryEurope Had a Plan to Reduce Carbon Emissions. Scammers Fleeced It for Billions
Dec 1500:39:12Summary readyWhen scam artist Gregory Zaoui got out of prison in 2004, he had a plan to go straight – by selling solar panels. But when he learned about a new carbon trading system that was supposed to reduce CO2 emissions, he saw an obvious loophole. And soon, he found himself at the center of a fraud scheme so extensive that it was hard to tell if the carbon market was doing anything to fight climate change at all.Featured in this episode:Jessica Camille AguirreSources:Jessica Camille Aguirre’s reporting in The Atavaist Magazine: https://magazine.atavist.com/2024/watch-it-burn-france-europe-carbon-fraud-scam-vat-betrayal Alec Henry’s podcast “Le Déclic” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkYkJiFl8PgSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
SummaryShipbreaking: Inside the World’s Most Dangerous Job
Dec 800:37:36Summary readyWhen oil tankers, freighters and cruise ships reach the end of their lives, nearly all wind up on just three beaches in South Asia. There, unskilled workers earning just a few dollars a day tear them apart with hand tools and blowtorches, to be sold as scrap. The shipbreaking industry has remained unchanged for decades, despite its well-documented dangers to the environment and worker safety. But after a deadly explosion in Pakistan, and a risky investigation in Bangladesh, are changes finally coming?Special thanks to:Julia Bleckner and Human Rights Watch: https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/09/28/trading-lives-profit/how-shipping-industry-circumvents-regulations-scrap-toxic Ingvild Jenssen and NGO Shipbreaking Platform: https://shipbreakingplatform.org/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
SummaryIs Russia Training Dolphin Soldiers? (Are We?)
Dec 100:37:49Summary readyHumans have a long history of deploying wild beasts in wartime, from horse-mounted cavalry to Hannibal riding into Rome on an elephant. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2023, a mysterious group of dolphins appeared in the Black Sea. It signaled a return to an old program that many thought had died with the fall of the Soviet Union. For years, the USSR trained dolphins to advance their military goals. And so did America. Special thanks to:Pavel GoldinSergei Dobrynin and Mark KrutovBlair IrvineSources:Frontline’s The Story of Navy Dolphins: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/whales/etc/navycron.htmlBBC's Secrets of the Spy Whale: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002504pSergei Dobrynin and Mark Krutov’s reporting: https://www.svoboda.org/a/31006448.htmlSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
SummaryENCORE: Coal, Con Men and a Kidnapping Scheme
Nov 2400:48:29Summary readyNote: This episode originally aired on July 28, 2024.When a Montana coal mine executive goes missing it exposes the dirty underbelly of one of America’s largest coal mines. Now, with the help of President Donald Trump, the mine is trying to expand – unless a group of cattle ranchers can stop them.Special thanks to:Northern Plains Resource Council (https://northernplains.org/)Montana Environmental Information Center (https://meic.org/)EarthjusticeEllen PfisterClark Williams-Derry, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (https://ieefa.org/)John Teeling, FBI Special Agent (retired)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
SummaryBhopal: The World’s Worst Industrial Disaster
Nov 1700:40:08Summary readyWhat occurred shortly after midnight in Bhopal, India on December 3, 1984 is still being felt – and fought over – four decades later. The scale of the tragedy, involving a pesticide factory and maddening lack of accountability by its corporate owner, raise questions about whether its victims will ever know justice. And have we learned enough to stop something like it from happening again?Special thanks to:Satinath Sarangi, find out more about his work at Sambhavna ClinicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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