Lawless Planet

On New Year’s Eve 2024, an Uber driver named Jonathan Rinderknecht allegedly started a fire in the Pacific Palisades. The fire was quickly contained, but it lingered on underground as a “zombie fire.” Days later, fueled by Santa Ana Winds, it exploded into the Palisades Fire, the most destructive conflagration in Los Angeles history. A second fire, ignited just hours later, destroyed much of neighboring Altadena. In the aftermath, angry residents wanted accountability – but who is to blame for a fire when the earth is now a tinderbox?

Featured in this episode:
Brad Weisshaupt, LA County Fire Department
Traci Park, LA City Council
India Bradley
Nic Arnzen, Altadena Town Council
Daniel Swain, University of California

Sources:
The Los Angeles Times
KTLA 5 News
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Chemical manufacturers like DuPont and 3M have invented nearly 15,000 synthetic compounds called PFAS, better known as “forever chemicals” because of how slowly they break down. They’re in the soil, our food, even our bodies. When the towns of Parkersburg, West Virginia and Hoosick Falls, New York found PFAS in their water supply, they fought to hold the chemical companies accountable – and exposed just how long DuPont scientists had known about the risks.

Featured in this episode:
Mariah Blake

Sources:
This episode relied heavily on the new book, They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals, by Mariah Blake
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554198/they-poisoned-the-world-by-mariah-blake/

And Ms. Blake’s 2015 article in the HuffPost Highline, “Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia: Home to one of the most brazen, deadly corporate gambits in U.S. history”
https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-beautiful-parkersburg/
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2017, Hurricane Maria, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, battered the island of Puerto Rico. In the aftermath, big banks, crypto bros and other ‘disaster capitalists’ swooped in to take advantage of the crisis. No one realized the full scope of death and destruction until a scrappy team of journalists started to investigate. They exposed a corrupt system that continues to threaten Puerto Rico’s power grid, its people and the environment.

Featured in this episode:
Carla Minet

Sources:
The investigative journalism of Carla Minet and her team at the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo
https://periodismoinvestigativo.com/
Naomi Klein’s book The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists
and her Intercept article “There’s Nothing Natural About Puerto Rico’s Disaster”
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/21/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-disaster-capitalism/
Yalixa Rivera and Jonathan Levin’s Bloomberg article “Can Crypto, Cannabis, and Nicolas Cage Boost Puerto Rico’s Economy?”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-10/can-crypto-cannabis-and-nicolas-cage-boost-puerto-rico-s-economy
David Yaffe-Bellany and Laura N. Pérez Sánchez’s New York Times article “The Unraveling of a Crypto Dream”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/technology/brock-pierce-crypto-puerto-rico.html
Fernando Tormos-Aponte’s In These Times “How an Investigative Journalism Center Helped Oust Puerto Rican Gov. Rosselló”
https://inthesetimes.com/article/investigative-journalism-rossello-puerto-rico-protests
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In 2011, the people of Ecuador shocked the world by winning a multibillion judgment against Chevron for failing to clean up its oil operations in the Amazon. But back in the U.S., Chevron responded by suing their most prominent legal adversary, Steven Donziger. And as the oil giant challenged the Ecuadorian verdict, Donziger found himself trapped in his own Kafkaesque legal nightmare, one that threatened to overshadow the plight of the people he was trying to help.

Featured in this episode:
Steven Donziger
Pablo Fajardo

Sources:
William Langewiesche’s Vanity Fair profile “Jungle Law” https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2007/5/jungle-law
Patrick Radden Keefe’s New Yorker article “Reversal of Fortune” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/09/reversal-of-fortune-patrick-radden-keefe
Joe Berlinger’s documentary “Crude”
Paul M. Barrett’s book Law of the Jungle

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

After Texaco (now Chevron) discovered oil in Ecuador, they left behind an ecological and public health disaster so severe that experts have dubbed it the "Amazon Chernobyl.” The local population then sued the company sparking an epic courtroom drama spanning multiple decades and costing billions of dollars. Leading that fight are two outspoken attorneys: an American outsider not afraid to make enemies, and an Ecuadorian lawyer who risked his life to stand up for his people.

Featured in this episode:
Pablo Fajardo
Steven Donziger

Sources:
William Langewiesche’s Vanity Fair profile “Jungle Law” https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2007/5/jungle-law
Patrick Radden Keefe’s New Yorker article “Reversal of Fortune” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/09/reversal-of-fortune-patrick-radden-keefe
Joe Berlinger’s documentary “Crude”
Paul M. Barrett’s book Law of the Jungle
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.