Épisodes

  • How America’s Deadliest Industrial Disaster Was Almost Erased

    How America’s Deadliest Industrial Disaster Was Almost Erased
    Jan 26 2026
    One of the worst industrial disasters in our nation’s history occurred in West Virginia in the 1930s. Not in a coal mine – but in a tunnel chiseled out of a mountain for a hydroelectric power plant. Hundreds of workers, most of them poor and Black, quietly died from breathing in silica dust. For decades, the true scale of the devastation was buried by the companies behind the project. Featured in this episode: Catherine Venable Moore Dr. Martin Cherniack Sources: Dr. Martin Cherniack’s book The Hawk’s Nest Incident: America’s Worst Industrial Disaster Catherine Venable Moore’s “The Book of the Dead” in Oxford American: https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-94-fall-2016/the-book-of-the-dead Muriel Rukeyser's Book of the Dead George Robinson’s Congressional Testimony NPR’s reporting on the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/20/685821214/before-black-lung-the-hawks-nest-tunnel-disaster-killed-hundreds See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    42 min
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  • Clean Energy, Dirty Mines: The Dark Story of Congo Cobalt

    Clean Energy, Dirty Mines: The Dark Story of Congo Cobalt
    Jan 19 2026
    The device you’re using to listen to this podcast almost certainly contains cobalt. It’s a vital component of rechargeable batteries, which are essential to electric vehicles, laptops, and smartphones. But most of the world’s known cobalt reserves are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where mines are plagued by child labor, human trafficking, and deadly working conditions. Featured in this episode: Siddharth Kara Sources: Siddharth Kara’s book Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives and his report “Blood Batteries” https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/beacons-of-excellence/rights-lab/resources/reports-and-briefings/2025/august/blood-batteries.pdf Nicolas Niarchos’ reporting in The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/the-dark-side-of-congos-cobalt-rush Amnesty International’s report “This is What We Die For” https://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/this_what_we_die_for_-_report.pdf See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    40 min
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  • The Unsolved Bombing of an Earth First! Activist

    The Unsolved Bombing of an Earth First! Activist
    Jan 12 2026
    In the late 1980s, Judi Bari was a fearless activist building an alliance between loggers and environmentalists to save the last of California's old growth redwoods. The same traits that attracted followers to her movement, also made her a lot of enemies. In 1990, a bomb exploded in Judi’s car while she was driving. Somehow she survived – but then the FBI showed up and told her she was under arrest. Featured in this episode: Darryl Cherney Sources: Darryl Cherney’s documentary Who Bombed Judi Bari? Josh Richman’s reporting in High Country News: https://www.hcn.org/issues/issue-229/earth-firster-judi-bari-avenged-at-last/ Judi Bari’s book Timber Wars See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    40 min
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  • Inside the Sting Operation to Catch Florida’s Alligator Thieves

    Inside the Sting Operation to Catch Florida’s Alligator Thieves
    Jan 5 2026
    When Florida state wildlife officials begin to suspect that someone is illegally harvesting alligator eggs, they launch Operation Alligator Thief. At its heart: a veteran officer named Jeff Babauta, who delays his retirement to go deep undercover as a real Florida Man, hoping to infiltrate the insular world of gator farming. Featured in this episode: Jeff Babauta Rebecca Renner Sources: Rebecca Renner’s book Gator Country: Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the Everglades See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    42 min
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  • The Trash Ship That Became a Symbol of America’s Toxic Waste Problem

    The Trash Ship That Became a Symbol of America’s Toxic Waste Problem
    Dec 29 2025
    In the 1980s, Philadelphia was in the midst of a trash crisis. A sanitation workers’ strike had left the city with an immense backlog of garbage. The solution: Ship it overseas, on a rusting cargo vessel called the Khian Sea. But when one country after another refused to take Philly’s waste, it turned the Khian Sea’s trash voyage into a trash odyssey, and shed light on a growing problem that critics came to call “garbage imperialism.” Featured in this episode: Kenny Bruno Sources: Simone M. Müller’s book The Toxic Ship Alexander Clapp’s book Waste Wars Planet Money’s reporting on the Mobro 4000: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/739893511 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    32 min
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  • Drilled: How Greenpeace Got Sued for the Standing Rock Protests

    Drilled: How Greenpeace Got Sued for the Standing Rock Protests
    Dec 22 2025
    Today, Lawless Planet brings you an episode from our friends at Drilled Media. Season 12 of their flagship podcast is called SLAPP’d, and it tells another side of a story we covered earlier in our episode “Surveillance and Sabotage on the Dakota Access Pipeline.” Greenpeace, which was only tangentially involved in the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, has been slapped with a $666 million bill for damages...despite the fact that DAPL was built, and has been making Energy Transfer millions of dollars for years. How did we get here? Cody Hall, an Indigenous water protector who was a key figure during the Standing Rock protests and was initially also targeted in Energy Transfer's suit, walks us through how things went down back in 2016 and 2017, and where this suit began. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    43 min
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  • Scamfluencers: The Solar Powered Scammer

    Scamfluencers: The Solar Powered Scammer
    Dec 15 2025
    We’re doing something different on Lawless Planet this week. We’re sharing an episode from our friends Scamfluencers — a show that unpacks the wildest true stories of high-profile scams and the con artists behind them. When Jeff Carpoff starts a business making portable solar generators, it becomes an instant hit among big corporations, Hollywood studios, and deep-pocketed investors. They think they’re getting a good deal on green energy – and a huge tax credit to go along with it. But Jeff’s clients don’t realize that he’s been playing them. And when he flies too close to the sun, it’ll blow the fuse on his whole operation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    43 min
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  • Europe Had a Plan to Reduce Carbon Emissions. Scammers Fleeced It for Billions

    Europe Had a Plan to Reduce Carbon Emissions. Scammers Fleeced It for Billions
    Dec 8 2025
    When scam artist Gregory Zaoui got out of prison in 2004, he had a plan to go straight – by selling solar panels. But when he learned about a new carbon trading system that was supposed to reduce CO2 emissions, he saw an obvious loophole. And soon, he found himself at the center of a fraud scheme so extensive that it was hard to tell if the carbon market was doing anything to fight climate change at all. Featured in this episode: Jessica Camille Aguirre Sources: Jessica Camille Aguirre’s reporting in The Atavaist Magazine: https://magazine.atavist.com/2024/watch-it-burn-france-europe-carbon-fraud-scam-vat-betrayal Alec Henry’s podcast “Le Déclic” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkYkJiFl8Pg See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    39 min
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