Lawless Planet

The tug-of-war over undeveloped land in the U.S. is nothing new, but in 2014 Cliven and Ammon Bundy escalated their dispute over cattle grazing permits in Nevada to another level. Their clash against the federal Bureau of Land Management would galvanize a movement – and set the stage for one of the largest armed uprisings against the government in American history, with lasting consequences for the environment.

Featured in this episode:
Betsy Gaines Quammen

Sources:
Betsy Gaines Quammen's book American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God and Public Lands in the West
PBS’s Frontline’s documentary American Patriot.
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In 2015, news broke that Exxon’s own scientists had known for decades that burning fossil fuels was causing global warming. To raise awareness, climate activists launched a campaign called “Exxon Knew.” But almost immediately, they noticed something strange: their private emails seemed to be getting leaked to the press. They were getting hacked – but by who?

Featured in this episode:
Kert Davies, Center for Climate Integrity
John Scott Railton, The Citizen Lab

Sources:
The Citzen Lab’s “Dark Basin: Uncovering a Massive Hack-for-Hire Operation”: https://citizenlab.ca/research/dark-basin-uncovering-a-massive-hack-for-hire-operation/

Inside Climate News’s “Exxon: The Road Not Taken”: https://insideclimatenews.org/project/exxon-the-road-not-taken/

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One of the worst industrial disasters in our nation’s history occurred in West Virginia in the 1930s. Not in a coal mine – but in a tunnel chiseled out of a mountain for a hydroelectric power plant. Hundreds of workers, most of them poor and Black, quietly died from breathing in silica dust. For decades, the true scale of the devastation was buried by the companies behind the project.

Featured in this episode:
Catherine Venable Moore
Dr. Martin Cherniack

Sources:
Dr. Martin Cherniack’s book The Hawk’s Nest Incident: America’s Worst Industrial Disaster
Catherine Venable Moore’s “The Book of the Dead” in Oxford American:
https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-94-fall-2016/the-book-of-the-dead
Muriel Rukeyser's Book of the Dead
George Robinson’s Congressional Testimony
NPR’s reporting on the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/20/685821214/before-black-lung-the-hawks-nest-tunnel-disaster-killed-hundreds
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The device you’re using to listen to this podcast almost certainly contains cobalt. It’s a vital component of rechargeable batteries, which are essential to electric vehicles, laptops, and smartphones. But most of the world’s known cobalt reserves are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where mines are plagued by child labor, human trafficking, and deadly working conditions.
Featured in this episode:
Siddharth Kara
Sources:
Siddharth Kara’s book Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives and his report “Blood Batteries” https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/beacons-of-excellence/rights-lab/resources/reports-and-briefings/2025/august/blood-batteries.pdf
Nicolas Niarchos’ reporting in The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/the-dark-side-of-congos-cobalt-rush
Amnesty International’s report “This is What We Die For” https://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/this_what_we_die_for_-_report.pdf
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In 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 Cherney

Sources:
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 Wars
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