pollution

Episode 48: AfricaTown, Alabama (Part 2 of 2)

In this second of a two-part conversation I talk to Major Joe Womack (USMC-retired) about AfricaTown. Now part of Mobile, Alabama, AfricaTown was founded by survivors of the last slave ship to bring Africans to the US. And the shipwreck was just discovered in 2019. Joe Womack was born and raised there and now he is leading a fight to prevent its ongoing exploitation and pollution by toxic industries. It’s a story that goes to the heart, not only of the Deep South, but of America’s failure to reconcile itself to the darkest chapters of its history. It’s also a story of how those events might be used to breathe new life into a struggling community.

 
C.H.E.S.S. community foundation for AfricaTown, Alabama

C.H.E.S.S. community foundation for AfricaTown, Alabama

 
 
 

Episode 47: Last Slave Ship to the US (1 of 2)

In this first of a two-part conversation I talk to Major Joe Womack (USMC-retired) about AfricaTown. Now part of Mobile, Alabama, AfricaTown was founded by survivors of the last slave ship to bring Africans to the US. And the shipwreck was just discovered in 2019. Joe Womack was born and raised there and now he is leading a fight to prevent its ongoing exploitation and pollution by toxic industries. It’s a story that goes to the heart, not only of the Deep South, but of America’s failure to reconcile itself to the darkest chapters of its history. It’s also a story of how those events might be used to breathe new life into a struggling community.

 
C.H.E.S.S. community foundation, AfricaTown, Alabama

C.H.E.S.S. community foundation, AfricaTown, Alabama

 
 
 

Episode 14: Environmental Journalism

April Reese is an environmental journalist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, though her reporting has taken her all over the US and for a long stint in Australia, where she traveled clear around the continent. Her writing has been published in Nature, Scientific American, Smithsonian, Discover, and she recently published a massive piece covering the top science policy issue in every state (plus Puerto Rico and Washington, DC) for Popular Science.

Among many topics discussed, April explains the challenges of maintaining professional distance when reporting on issues that impact all life on earth, and we discuss why it seems to be so difficult to get people to care about the one issue that matters more than anything else... the environment.

Plus her aunt's 1970’s nature show for kids, Hodgepodge Lodge.