Both before and after the 2011 "Triple Disaster" of earthquake, tidal wave, and consequent meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, anthropologist Satsuki Takahashi visited nearby communities, collecting accounts of life and livelihoods along the industrialized seascape. The resulting environmental ethnography examines the complex relationship ... Show More
Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Jan 26
Terry Williams, "Life Underground: Encounters with People Below the Streets of New York" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Aboveground, Manhattan’s Riverside Park provides open space for the densely populated Upper West Side. Beneath its surface run railroad tunnels, disused for decades, where over the years unhoused people have taken shelter. The sociologist Terry Williams ventured into the tunnel r ... Show More
27m 9s
Jan 26
Lesly-Marie Buer, "RX Appalachia: Stories of Treatment and Survival in Rural Kentucky" (Haymarket, 2020)
Using the narratives of women who use(d) drugs, this account challenges popular understandings of Appalachia spread by such pundits as JD Vance by documenting how women, families, and communities cope with generational systems of oppression. Prescription opioids are associated wi ... Show More
44m 56s
Aug 2023
Satsuki Takahashi, "Fukushima Futures: Survival Stories in a Repeatedly Ruined Seascape" (U Washington Press, 2023)
Both before and after the 2011 "Triple Disaster" of earthquake, tidal wave, and consequent meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, anthropologist Satsuki Takahashi visited nearby communities, collecting accounts of life and livelihoods along the industrialized seas ... Show More
53m 1s
May 2022
Who Killed Nuclear Energy?
Emmet Penney, creator of Nuclear Barbarians, Grid Brief, and the ex.haust podcast, walks us through the rise, fall and future prospects of nuclear power in the United States. Emmet dives deep on the historical, regulatory, political, and environmentalist forces behind nuclear ene ... Show More
1h 15m
May 2023
Rob Verchick, "The Octopus in the Parking Garage: A Call for Climate Resilience" (Columbia UP, 2023)
One morning in Miami Beach, an unexpected guest showed up in a luxury condominium complex’s parking garage: an octopus. The image quickly went viral. But the octopus―and the combination of infrastructure quirks and climate impacts that left it stranded―is more than a funny meme. ... Show More
1h 12m
Nov 2021
Michael Shellenberger: A Heretic Among Heretics
<p>In this episode, I am joined by returning guest Michael Shellenberger. We briefly discuss his new book San Fransicko, which, like his best-seller Apocalypse Never, takes a heterodox stance on an issue that progressives feel they champion -- in this case, the drug and homelessn ... Show More
1h 3m
Oct 4
Gerta Keller, "The Last Extinction: The Real Science Behind the Death of the Dinosaurs" (Diversion Books, 2025)
The story behind Dr. Gerta Keller’s world-shattering scientific discovery that dinosaur extinction was NOT caused by asteroid impact, but rather by volcanic eruptions on the Indian peninsula, a discovery that highlights today’s existential threat of greenhouse gasses and climate ... Show More
59m 52s
Feb 2023
Science Of ‘The Last Of Us’ Fungi, New U.S. Nuclear Power. Feb 3, 2023, Part 1
<p>Wind And Solar Were Europe’s Top Energy Sources In 2022</p>
<p>The European Union reached a major renewable energy milestone in 2022. For the first time, <a href="https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/wind-solar-europe-2022/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=sci ... Show More
47m 15s
Oct 4
Gerta Keller, "The Last Extinction: The Real Science Behind the Death of the Dinosaurs" (Diversion Books, 2025)
The story behind Dr. Gerta Keller’s world-shattering scientific discovery that dinosaur extinction was NOT caused by asteroid impact, but rather by volcanic eruptions on the Indian peninsula, a discovery that highlights today’s existential threat of greenhouse gasses and climate ... Show More
59m 52s
Aug 2023
Hawai’i Wildfires, Blue-Fin Tuna Science, Maine’s New Lithium Deposit. August 11, 2023, Part 1
<p>We have a new podcast! It’s called <a href="https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/new-science-friday-podcast-universe-of-art/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri" target="_blank">Universe Of Art</a>, and it’s all about artists who use science to bring their ... Show More
45m 11s