John Beard Jr., founder and president of the Port Arthur Community Action Network, worked at Exxon for 38 years. As a community advocate focusing on environmental issues and community development today, John knows firsthand the important intersection of environmental justice and labor justice. Transcript and show notes: https://earthworks.org/murdering-our-stars-podcast/

The United States could have more than 3.2 million orphaned and abandoned wells that cause huge impacts on the environment. For ranchers and landowners like Schuyler Wight, this poses a significant threat to livelihoods. According to Megan Biven, it’s an opportunity to turn this emergency into a much-needed, water-saving climate jobs program, which turns oil and gas workers into national environmental heroes. Transcript and show notes: https://earthworks.org/murdering-our-stars-podcast/

A lot more than oil and gas comes to the surface at an oil and gas well. We’re joined by Justin Nobel, who has written a series of explosive features examining radioactive oilfield waste for the environmental investigative site DeSmog, and whose 2020 feature with Rolling Stone magazine, “America’s Radioactive Secret,” was the result of a two-year investigation into the radioactivity brought to the surface in oil and gas production and the harms posed to the industry’s workers, the public and communities, and the environment. Transcript and show notes: https://earthworks.org/murdering-our-stars-podcast/

Most people know that oil and gas emit air pollution. But few people understand that these wells also produce radioactive waste. That’s right — radioactive. Melissa Troutman, the co-founder of the investigative news nonprofit Public Herald and co-director of three documentary films between 2013-2020, tells us why the climate threat of oil and gas is not bad enough. Transcript and show notes: https://earthworks.org/murdering-our-stars-podcast/

Sheila Serna joined the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) right out of college because it seemed like an opportunity to be a part of something that could actually make a difference. Within months of being there and learning what air regulations look like, however, she began to question why more violations weren’t given to more operators. Transcript and show notes: https://earthworks.org/murdering-our-stars-podcast/

Tim Doty worked at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for nearly three decades because he believed in the agency's mission to protect Texans’ public health and natural resources. But he retired after it became increasingly clear that the agency’s leadership had little to no interest in proactively monitoring, documenting, and minimizing air emissions in Texas. Transcript and show notes: https://earthworks.org/murdering-our-stars-podcast/

The state agency that is supposed to protect public health and natural resources in Texas is broken, putting fossil fuel profits above people. The Texas Field Team at Earthworks goes on a deep dive into the vast shortcomings of the regulatory system that allowed the Permian fracking boom to happen in the first place. Transcript and show notes: https://earthworks.org/murdering-our-stars-podcast/

The Permian Basin oilfield in West Texas is destroying the climate. The Texas Field Team at Earthworks document oil and gas emissions with technology that makes pollution invisible to the naked eye visible. Transcript and show notes: https://earthworks.org/murdering-our-stars-podcast/