A microphone, a laptop, a notebook, a cup, a photo frame, and some plants sit on a desk.

Eight Environmental Podcasts to Follow in 2024

Running out of podcasts? Fret not. Edge Effects editors have a list of environmental podcasts that they think you should listen to. This list encompasses a wide range of topics related to environmental and social change, including climate activism, corporate greenwashing, mining conflicts, and more.
Ecologies of the digital at work: a fish farm in Donegal with buildings next to the bog to the right, tanks to the left, and mountains in the back.

Fish Farming in the Digital Cloud

Patrick Brodie investigates the complex political ecology of energy, data, and fish in Ireland's peat bog aquaculture.
A barge containing garbage is floating on a river. In the background, there are buildings and cityscape.

From Trash Trade to Waste Colonialism: A Conversation with Simone Müller

Paul Sutter interviews Simone Müller about the famous case of the Khian Sea, a "renegade ship" carrying waste and trying to dock in different countries. The ship reveals the many contradictions within environmental movements and policies.
Wooden fences loosely connected by wires in a desert lanscape

Faculty Favorites: Ecologies & Politics of Borders

Edge Effects invites scholars from different disciplines to introduce texts on the complexities of borders. This list also includes ideas on how to frame and teach the topic of borders in the classroom.
A variety of plants mingle and grow together.

Más allá de los monocultivos del género, los horizontes trans 

La lógica de las plantaciones le dan forma a nuestra vida. El género es hoy un monocultivo, pero Max D. López Toledano y Topaz Zega sugieren que cultivar policultivos del género nos ofrece nuevas maneras de florecer.
Is the Outdoor Recreation Boom Too Good to Be True?

Is the Outdoor Recreation Boom Too Good to Be True?

The outdoor recreation economy (ORE) is where land, labor, and leisure collide. Mara MacDonell explores the complexities and complications behind the apparent rise of ORE, including housing insecurity, economic inequality, and environmental degradation.
an image of the man-made island in the Maldives, Hulhumalé

Centering Islands in a Rising Ocean: A Conversation with Christina Gerhardt

Samm Newton interviews Dr. Christina Gerhardt about her 2023 book Sea Change, which is a collection of essays, a history of connection, and a window into island nations facing an uncertain future.
a birthday cake shaped like a camp site

Ten Hidden Gems From the Edge Effects Archives

The editorial board recommends environmental readings from the archives—on topics ranging from the Anthropocene to environmental art to blue humanities.
many clear and green plastic bottles strung together, with light shining through

Living With Plastic and Toxicity, Queerly

Svenja Engelmann-Kewitz reviews Heather Davis's book Plastic Matter, which theorizes the queer potentials and complex legacies of plastic.
HZL Pollution

Hindustan Zinc and Corporate Social (Ir)Responsibility

In 2021 and 2022, Prerna Rana spoke with people in Udaipur, India whose livelihoods have been impacted negatively by both environmental pollution and the corporate social responsibility programs meant to mitigate that harm.
people holding signs at a climate protest

New Climate Vocabulary for a Changing World

How can we enrich colloquial language about climate change? Inspired by Gen Z slang, Stevie Chedid imagines a linguistic paradigm shift.
Mother kangaroo carries her joey in a burned megafire landscape.

Multispecies Grief in the Wake of Megafires

A global coalition of authors articulate the environmental violence of megafires by focusing on the myriad experiences of multispecies grief in their wake.
Man standing in the midst of a green field looking at white windmills.

The Problem with Wind Farming on Rajasthan’s Sacred Lands

Orans are sacred lands in the Thar Desert that are are being developed for wind energy projects. Nisha Paliwal argues that while wind energy is considered sustainable, it is experienced as violent extractivism by nearby village communities.
A close-up, stylized image of a crocodile's eye.

Pandemics, Predation, and Crip Worldings

Mollie Holmberg takes crip lessons from philosopher Val Plumwood's experience of being prey to a crocodile, pointing toward strategies for collective pandemic survival and resistance to environmental violence.
The Violence of Gated Communities in Buenos Aires's Wetlands

The Violence of Gated Communities in Buenos Aires’s Wetlands

Real estate developments emulating U.S.-style master-planned communities are popular in Buenos Aires. Mara Dicenta unpacks the violence such developments enact on the environment and the community, as well as the resurgence against them.
Fire burning through dead grass and smoke rising up.

When Aboriginal Burning Practices Meet Colonial Legacies in Australia

Aboriginal burning regimes have become popular as a solution to prevent catastrophic wildfires in Australia. Mardi Reardon-Smith argues that Aboriginal peoples’ fire knowledge is not static, as contemporary burning results from both colonial histories and the intercultural co-creation of environmental knowledges.
How Electrification Distanced Poultry Farmers from their Flocks

How Electrification Distanced Poultry Farmers from their Flocks

Electricity reshaped the poultry industry over the 20th century. Zoe Robertson asks what the costs of this transformation were for birds and inter-species relations.
aerial photo showing white ice melting and extending into rivers and eventually into the ocean

Who is Killing the Glaciers? From Glacier Funerals to Glacier Autopsies

Glaciers do not simply die; they are killed. Zachary Provant and Mark Carey discuss how attribution science can help pinpoint climate change culprits and bring justice.
silhouette of a person wearing a narrow brimmed hat and holding a rake, backlit by the sun

Unearthing the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming: A Conversation with Liz Carlisle

Liz Carlisle shares stories from her latest book, which uncovers the history of regenerative agriculture and the farmers of color who practice it.
A young Xicana activists stands in front of a banner surrounded by a crowd.

Climate Influencers and the Politics of Attention

Mark Ortiz shows how youth climate activists strategically leverage attention to gain institutional influence while navigating its uneven distribution across geographies.
A group of youth work in a community garden

Growing Food Justice Through Urban Farming

In the final episode of the Ground Truths podcast series, Clare Sullivan, Carly Gittrich, and Ben Iuliano talk to urban agriculture leaders in Dane County, Wisconsin about how their programs serve Black communities and other communities of color.
Blue road sign reading "evacuation route" in front of a highway at night

Environmental Evacuation Is a Collective Problem

Max Lubell looks to contraflow traffic signs to argue that climate change discourses must include a renewed focus on evacuation from disasters.
Black and white photograph of two men drying wild rice on sheets.

What Minnesota’s Mineral Gaze Overlooks

Minnesota state agencies have a history of seeing the landscape with an eye toward extraction, writes Andrew Hoyt, ignoring water resources and Indigenous sovereignty in favor of risky mining.
A blue river surrounded by dark green shrubs and grasses on a cloudy day. Industrial buildings sit in the background.

When Wetland Restoration and Big Oil Collide

Walking through the Baytown Nature Center near Houston, Texas, Gardiner Brown traces how this wildlife sanctuary is enmeshed with the local petrochemical industry and makes a case for imperfect restoration.
Corn farm

Farms, Fertilizer, and the Fight for Clean Water

In Portage County, Wisconsin, 95 percent of the nitrate in groundwater comes from agriculture, and it's having major health consequences for residents. Ground Truths editors Ben Iuliano and Carly Griffith find out how community members have used scientific and legal advocacy to fight for cleaner drinking water.
Overhead view of a frac sand mining facility with train tracks, large sand piles, and a settling pond

What Happens in the Wake of Frac Sand’s Boom and Bust?

Wisconsin is home to some of the best sand in the country, making it a key player in the oil and gas industry. For this episode of Ground Truths, Justyn Huckleberry and Clare Sullivan take a close look at frac sand mining in the state—the lack of regulation and oversight,
Numerous blue and green objects placed close together

Swimming with Trash in the Caribbean

The Caribbean is known for its pristine beaches and tourist spots, but it has increasingly become a dumping ground for the world's unmanaged garbage. Ysabel Muñoz Martínez charts how "wastescapes" are proliferating in the Anthropocene.
Old can of Dutch Boy lead paint

Living with Lead in Milwaukee

In 2021, rates of childhood lead exposure in Milwaukee were nearly double the state average. In this episode of Ground Truths, Juniper Lewis and Carly Griffith learn more about this public health crisis.
Why Are Anti-Vaxxers Obsessed With the "Natural"?

Why Are Anti-Vaxxers Obsessed With the “Natural”?

In this written correspondence, emery jenson talks to Dr. Traci Brynne Voyles about how ableist and racist thinking along with a narrow conception of "environmentalism" have propped up the anti-vaccination movement.
Faculty Favorites: Books That Go Beyond the Classroom

Faculty Favorites: Books That Go Beyond the Classroom

Six scholars from campuses across the country recommend new environmental books about the blue humanities, environmental justice, the histories of bikes and blockades, and more.
The top of a white capitol building with bright blue sky in the background

The Slow Erosion of Environmental Protections in Wisconsin

In the first episode of the Ground Truths podcast series, Carly Griffith speaks with environmental advocates in Wisconsin about how they are addressing local issues of contamination from manufactured chemicals like PFAS and industrial agriculture.
Black and white photo of brick wall with "Fallout Shelter" sign

American Apocalyptic: A Conversation with Jessica Hurley

Beyond "doom bros" and end-of-history narratives, Jessica Hurley's new book looks to the stories Black, queer, Indigenous, and Asian American writers tell about nuclear infrastructures and the radical politics of futurelessness.
Aerial view of bridge over blue river through a city

Green Gentrification in South Philly

"South Philly had Black history but no Black people." Sterling Johnson, with Kimberley Thomas, ‎follows a century of green gentrification along the Schuylkill River.
Diving into the Aquatic Depths of East Asian Ecohorror

Diving into the Aquatic Depths of East Asian Ecohorror

In ecohorror movies like Shin Godzilla and The Host, pollution fights back in the form of rampaging sea monsters. Lindsay S. R. Jolivette traces the significance of water in these films—and what it reveals about our worst nightmares.
Golden maple leaves by the beach near blue waters of lake.

It’s Time to Decolonize the Great Lakes

Caitlin Joseph argues that Indigenous water governance practices are necessary to creating a more equitable Great Lakes.
Faculty Favorites: Books for a Return to Campus

Faculty Favorites: Books for a Return to Campus

Seven scholars from a variety of fields recommend new books and classics to read this fall, with topics ranging from Indigenous resistance and Afrofuturism to Irish coastal history and nineteenth-century surfing.
The Young Lords march to the UN with the Puerto Rican flag

The Young Lords’ Fight for Environmental Justice in NYC

Erik Wallenberg reviews Johanna Fernández's award-winning book on the Young Lords and connects their political project of securing garbage pickup and medical access for New Yorkers to the broader environmental justice movement.
Hand holds gold colored root

A Black Herbalist’s Guide to Breathing and Grieving with Yellow Dock

Herbalist Asia Dorsey reflects on a pandemic year when life and death cycles were especially present and describes Yellow Dock's role as the grief worker of the plant world.
Ojibwe protestors march against the Line 3 pipeline, carrying signs and chanting

On Ojibwe Lands, Protecting Water and Life from the Line 3 Pipeline

The new Enbridge Line 3 pipeline poses a slew of threats on treaty land. Ojibwe people lead the movement against its construction in Minnesota.
aerial view of Jaluit Atoll Lagoon, Marshall Islands

Poet’s Body as Archive Amidst a Rising Ocean

Western media often portrays Pacific Islanders as helpless victims of “sinking islands." Kuhelika Ghosh shows how Marshallese poet Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner brings performance poetry to climate activism and resistance.
Woman sits on green grass between a deer and a wolf. Lake and mountains in background.

How Wendy Red Star Decolonizes the Museum with Humor and Play

“When talking about Indigenous history you can just devastate yourself," says Apsáalooke artist Wendy Red Star. "And so, humor has been a way for me to cope with that." Drawing from an original interview with the artist, Nicole Seymour and Salma Monani examine how Red Star uses humor, play, and
Statue of a man sitting on a bench wearing a mask and reading a newspaper

Faculty Favorites: Reading Through the Pandemic

Six scholars recommend books and essays they're teaching this fall to navigate the pandemics of coronavirus and racial injustice.
Two bulldozers surrounded by piles of cut trees with rain forest in background

Defending Tomorrow Today

In light of the recent Global Witness report, Rob Nixon discusses the dangers environmental defenders face and their role as frontline workers in the fight against climate breakdown and zoonotic pandemics.
Shark swimming in black ocean

This Shark Can Outlast Nuclear Waste. But Will It?

This mysterious deep-sea shark is built to live centuries. Will it survive to tell the tale of the Anthropocene? Sadie E. Hale considers the Greenland shark, nuclear waste, and ocean plastics, showing how their sclaes of time and space converge.
San Miguel Cuevas

The Environmental Injustices of Forced Migration

Guadalupe Remigio Ortega shares her family's histories and describes how Mixtec forced migrations are part of a global story of environmental injustice.
La Lucha Yaqui: A Conversation with Mario Luna Romero

La Lucha Yaqui: A Conversation with Mario Luna Romero

In Spanish and English, activist Mario Luna Romero discusses the Yaqui struggle for water and land rights with Ben Barson and Gizelxanath Rodriguez.
A group of protestors in Paris, one holding a sign that reads "cool kids saving a hot planet"

OK, Doomers! The Climate Generation Has Arrived

The climate generation is coming of age. Sarah Jaquette Ray, author of A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety, explains what older generations have to learn.
What Is Land? A Conversation with Tania Murray Li, Rafael Marquese, and Monica White

What Is Land? A Conversation with Tania Murray Li, Rafael Marquese, and Monica White

Land is the scene of a crime and a site of liberation. Tania Murray Li, Rafael Marquese, and Monica White discuss land and the Plantationocene with Elizabeth Hennessy.
People climb on a large metal structure

Infrastructure’s Inequalities: A Conversation with Nikhil Anand and Nausheen Anwar

Geographer Siddharth Menon interviews anthropologist Nikhil Anand and urban planner Nausheen Anwar about infrastructures and development in India and Pakistan.
A photo of a black metal sculpture, resembling a sea urchin, sitting in a grassy, empty lot along Braddock Avenue.

The Future of Landscape Architecture is TV

Inspired by TV as a medium, Marc Miller's course in landscape architecture has students make environmental fiction about the future rather than design for the present.
Phosphate Mining and the Paradox of Abundance

Phosphate Mining and the Paradox of Abundance

Phosphorus fertilizes the land. Phosphate mining poisons it. Artist Christian Danielewitz visits sites of extraction in western Senegal and considers the Plantationocene.
Several pipes run underneath a bridge and over a river in the Washington, DC, area.

Decolonizing Infrastructure in India and the US: A Conversation with Malini Ranganathan

Two urban geographers discuss decolonization in theory and practice, the politics of water and infrastructure, and the social sides of environmental science.
Brian Teare and Lynn Keller

Writing Ecopoetry During Doomstead Days: A Conversation with Brian Teare

A new book of poems, Doomstead Days, explores our intimate entanglements with watersheds, environmental loss, and the toxic burdens we carry.
Headshot of Dr. Hoover and book cover

Pollution Doesn’t Care About Borders: A Conversation with Elizabeth Hoover

An anthropologist uses community-based research methods to investigate environmental justice, reproductive health, and food sovereignty in Indigenous communities like the Akwesasne Mohawk in upstate New York.
A black and white etching of a flooded street with ships washing past buildings

Imagining a Green New Deal Through Climate Fiction

Is the Green New Deal real or science fiction? Kim Stanley Robinson's novel New York 2140 imagines a flooded world where climate action is unavoidable.
Coal worker at Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Wyoming

The WWII Incarceration of Japanese Americans Is an Environmental Story

The environmental conditions of Japanese American incarceration camps in World War II were pivotal to the way detainees navigated their experience. But these histories are as diverse as their landscapes.
Fishing subsidies Kiribati

Where Have All the Fish Gone?

Subsidized fishing fleets are rapidly depleting fishing stocks and harming communities in the Central Pacific. It’s time island nations get a seat at the negotiating table on global trade and climate change.
A shoreline with algae, a discarded plastic turtle, foliage, rocks, and water with a visible slick sheen of something on its surface

Our Waters, Our Selves: A Conversation with Astrida Neimanis

"We can't contain water." Feminist philosopher Astrida Neimanis discusses the environmental inequalities and queer rhythms of the elusive fluid.
Activism and Hope in Flint: Five Questions for Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha

Activism and Hope in Flint: Five Questions for Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha

Pediatrician, scientist, and activist Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha uncovered the effects of the Flint Water Crisis on children. Her new book tells this story and how the Flint community came together to fight environmental racism and science denial with perseverance and hope.
A colorful drawing with green fields, pink mountains, and a collection of human and animal figures.

Weathering This World with Comics

Comics and graphic novels help us picture new worlds and imagine how to save our own. Four writers recommend their favorites.
A metal gate over the driveway into a fenced-in prison yard.

Prisons for Sale, Histories Not Included

Environmentalists played a disturbing role in the Adirondacks' prison-building boom. As the state now shutters many of those facilities, we're at risk of forgetting that.
A woman sitting on steps washing dishes in a temple pool.

Water Justice vs. Western Development in Nepal

A development practitioner and anthropologist explores the promises and realities of water development projects in Kathmandu, Nepal, where luxury hotels have pools while poor city residents struggle to find clean water sources.
Appalachians Against Pipelines

Earth First! and the Ethics of American Environmentalism

Why were American radical environmental movements able to gain political and philosophical ground in the second half of the 20th century? Keith Woodhouse looks at this question through the history of Earth First! and its legacy today.
Plastic Drink Beach

The Year of the Plastic Straw Ban

Controversial plastic straw bans continue to make headlines. A cultural analysis helps weigh the most recent legislation and asks whether bans on single-use plastics offer a path toward a more sustainable future or a distraction from systemic change.
Woke Environmentalism

Woke Environmentalism

Environmental justice is the future of environmental activism. A new documentary reader edited by Christopher Wells chronicles the birth of the environmental justice movement.
The Water's Not Fine: A Conversation with Anna Clark

The Water’s Not Fine: A Conversation with Anna Clark

The Flint water crisis is not over. Anna Clark’s new book tells the history of how we got here and how lead is here to stay.
Huda Alkaff poses with five adults and nine children in front of a wide pile of black bags of garbage in front of a short stone bridge spanning a river.

Muslims Stand Up for Environmental Justice: A Conversation with Huda Alkaff

The founder of Wisconsin Green Muslims talks about her group’s solar and water conservation work rooted in faith and justice, and its Greening Ramadan initiative for the Islamic holy month that begins this evening.
A photo portrait of Dylan Miner, looking at the camera wearing a plaid shirt and blue sportcoat with long braids on both sides of his head.

Indigenous Art as Creative Resistance: A Conversation with Dylan Miner

How can we use the arts to decolonize our relations to the land? An artist, activist, and scholar discusses the many forms of creative resistance we can use to imagine and enact new and better worlds.
Sugarcane workers in a field in Nicaragua

Is There a Place for Environmental Justice in Global Health?

Environmental justice and global health research collide in the Nicaraguan sugarcane fields over the causes of chronic kidney disease (CKDnt).
cement and wood barrier in front of field with shrubbery

Photographing Plutonium’s Invisible Legacy

In a series of photographs, a landscape designer and artist uncovers the invisible toxic legacies of nuclear technology in Hanford, WA.
Jaskiran Dhillon stands in the foreground of a blurry city scene with yellow taxicabs behind her

Indigenous Youth and the Changing Face of Settler Colonialism: A Conversation with Jaskiran Dhillon

An anthropologist and activist discusses her work with Indigenous youth and how social services and other state programs may be colonial intervention by another name.
On the left side, an image of Santo Toribio on a pale blue backround, ringed by nopal cacti. On the right side, "Oracion Por El Emigrante", a Spanish-language prayer for immigrants.

The Violent Environments of the Mexico-U.S. Border

An artist honors the struggles of undocumented immigrants in the Mexico-U.S. borderlands and shows the emotional and environmental toll of immigration policies.
An aerial view of Fordlandia

Five Reasons Why Henry Ford’s Failure in Brazil Still Matters Today

In this quick guide to Henry Ford's lasting impact in the Amazon, the director of Beyond Fordlândia shares the untold stories of violence, pollution, and activism he uncovered while filming the new documentary.
Savi Horne poses, smiling at the camera, in front of a large tilled field against a bright white sky.

Food Justice Requires Land Justice: A Conversation with Savi Horne

The fight against African American land loss isn't just about economic justice. It's about environmental sustainability.
Chicken nuggets against a blue square background imposed in the upper-left corner of an image of a charred industrial kichen after a fire, run through with horizontal red stripes, suggests an image of the U.S. flag.

How’d We Get So Cheap? A Conversation with Bryant Simon

The author of "The Hamlet Fire" discusses a deadly blaze at a chicken-processing facility and the logics of cheapness which provided the kindling.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, together with Al Gore, former United States Vice President and Chair of the Climate Reality Project, had a joint encounter with civil society representatives and the press during the during the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21). "An Inconvenient Sequel" follows Al Gore in his efforts to tackle climate change.

Al Gore and the Global South: A Review of “An Inconvenient Sequel”

Climate change advocacy requires finding common ground. Al Gore's new documentary highlights the importance of listening to the Global South to find solutions.
"Stop Calling Me Resilient": Addressing Environmental Degradation in Louisiana

“Stop Calling Me Resilient”: Addressing Environmental Degradation in Louisiana

Louisiana's coast restoration project, and its underlying framework of climate resiliency, is generating pushback from environmental justice organizations.
Toxic Bodies and the Wetter, Better Future of "Mad Max: Fury Road"

Toxic Bodies and the Wetter, Better Future of “Mad Max: Fury Road”

Most Hollywood catastrophe films offer neat endings and the promise of a fresh start. Fury Road asks what happens when the broken world cannot be made whole.
Environmental Resentment on the Political Right

Environmental Resentment on the Political Right

When is political resentment legitimate, and who gets to decide? Two recent books examine the emotional world of politics in rural Wisconsin and Louisiana.
Crumpled sign that reads "Water is Unfit for Human Consumption"

A Syllabus for Teaching Water Politics

A new syllabus outlines a series of readings for teaching the politics of water.
A photograph of Jedediah Purdy, taken by Brian Hamilton, March 2017.

Politics for a Maimed World: A Conversation with Jedediah Purdy

The acclaimed cultural critic and author of "After Nature" set off to explore the uncharted depths of the Anthropocene. But he found Thoreau there waiting for him.
A portrait of Dr. Tyrone Hayes. Photo by Brian Hamilton, February 17, 2017.

Learning from Einstein and Tupac: A Conversation with Tyrone Hayes

The biologist who became famous standing up to agribusiness reflects on the politics of science, getting mistaken for a conspiracy theorist, and the unexpected ways race and gender matter in the academy today.
Global Environmental Change in Indonesia: A Roundtable

Global Environmental Change in Indonesia: A Roundtable

Indonesian is known both for biodiversity and environmental degradation. This tension resonates with the stories we tell about global environmental change.
An abandoned building, beginning to fall down, next to an overgrown vacant lot in Baltimore. Photo by Dawn Biehler, 2016.

The Itchy Ecology of Segregation: A Conversation with Dawn Biehler

For many of us, mosquitos are an annoying fact of life in the summer. But for Dawn Biehler, they are also a symptom of social inequality.
How Activists Are Taking on Factory Farms

How Activists Are Taking on Factory Farms

Activists gather at a summit over factory farm expansion, offering an economic vision based on the value of clean water.
ceremony

The Ethics of Ceremony at Standing Rock

Activists at Standing Rock bring a sense of ceremony to environmental politics.
Wasting Space: Composting for Change in New York

Wasting Space: Composting for Change in New York

A compost organization in New York City offers up an alternative vision of urban green space and waste labor.
From White Privilege to White Supremacy: An Illustrated Interview with Laura Pulido

From White Privilege to White Supremacy: An Illustrated Interview with Laura Pulido

Pursuing environmental justice requires recognizing the varied forms of racism.
Nuclear power station row in Chernobyl. Photo by Tim Mousseau.

Chernobyl at Thirty: A Special Edition Environment and Health Roundtable

Drawing from presentations at the recent meeting of the American Society for Environmental History in Seattle, a historian, an ecologist, and a political scientist bring their different perspectives to bear on central questions of knowledge stirred by Chernobyl. What have we learned, or not?
Dueling Manifestos: Responses to an Ecological Crisis

Dueling Manifestos: Responses to an Ecological Crisis

This comparison of the Leap and the Ecomodernist Manifestos finds hope in an ethic of care.
environmental justice and radicalized violence

Doing Environmental Studies During Times of Racialized Violence

In the last few weeks, two grand juries declined to indict the police officers who killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner. What can scholars in the environmental humanities and social sciences say about racialized state violence?