UPDATE NOVEMBER 2023

I have produced my last episode of Terra Verde for KPFA and the Earth Island Journal Podcast! Viva Terra Verde and thanks to KPFA and the crew at EIJ. It was a great run.

Here are my last episodes, it was a good way to go out! Amazing guests, great topics and some good informative listening.

Spotlight on Environmental Justice Implications of California Wood Pellet Export Scheme

Global Climate Politics and the Dangers of Solar Geoengineering

Major Carbon Capture and Sequestration Project Unveiled for SF Bay Delta Region

Economic Empire and the Raw Resource of the California Redwoods

Speculative ClimateTechnologies Perpetuate Racism

I like doing radio too much to say that I won’t find some way to get back to producing media like this again. Seven years of Terra Verde was simply enough, thank you and onwards!

ORIGINAL POST

One of my great satisfactions, as both a professional and personal expression, is radio programming, content development, interview hosting and audio production. I have been doing radio since I was in high school, learning the ropes on old school analog equipment. Holding down different volunteer stints over time has been my means of learning some radio basics. I continue to put energy into skills development, and by many measures the truth is that when it comes to production, I have been a slow learner. Yet radio has always been a fun and effective media for communicating and playing with my interests in politics and music. This VozSilvestre blog has long been a bit too quiet, let's celebrate some of the great programming I have developed with KPFA Terra Verde over these last few years.

I can say with confidence that the matters that I have covered for KPFA and other radio platforms over these many years are extremely important -- and at the same time are definitely not getting the coverage they deserve by larger outlets. Getting on the radio and making our own media has always been a necessary communications tactic when challenging the abuses and media blackouts of wealth and power. As it has played out, I have taken some important steps in the last years in terms of becoming a more complete radio host. The pandemic, for better or worse, finally forced me to become a producer, learning some rudimentary productions skills, and not just a host who could show up at the radio studio and host a good live interview, letting the operations teams handle the board, which I have been doing for more than a decade (though I do have experience as a board operator too, as long ago it might be that I was engineer for the KMUD Evening News). Having to work the KPFA airwaves from home forced my hand, I had no other choice than learning how to package up a show from my laptop, now I am having more fun with radio than I ever did before. Imagine what might happen if I could really dedicate my time and energy to doing the deep stories on these transformative issues that just do not receive the coverage that they deserve. My dream job now is to work as a reporter producing longer form radio pieces to tell the stories that other media refuse to tell.

This sampling of linked episodes serves here as something of a representative portfolio of the KPFA Terra Verde episodes I have produced in the last couple of years. Give a listen, share, and help me get the word out and build an audience for this unique grassroots environmental reporting.

Here's to community radio! Support KPFA and all the other radio stations you know and love too!

The Politics of Climate Desperation and Tainted Narratives

As corporations and governments drive hard for ‘net zero’ and ‘carbon capture’ as a supposed climate solution KPFA Terra Verde is joined by writer and climate justice advocate Anthony Rogers-Wright to discuss his recently published essay Colonizing Calamity: Why Anglocentrism Exacerbates the Climate Crisis, in which he articulates the imperative of the climate community rejecting the white savior mentality.

Pomo Land Back Campaign Holds Powerful Rally At State Capitol

There is a bright light of grassroots environmental activism that is shaking up the status quo from the redwood region to the state capitol. The Save Our Pomo Homeland campaign is redefining forest and climate activism in California. This episode of Terra Verde highlights the March 25 rally in Sacramento to protect the Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF, also known as “the Jackson”), a nearly 50,000 acre publicly owned state forest in Western Mendocino County that has become central to organizing for indigenous sovereignty on the North Coast. With unique audio from the rally on the Capitol steps this episode also features an interview with tribal elder Priscilla Hunter of the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians.

Red Rock Biofuels: A Case Study in the False Promises of Bioenergy

Terra Verde does a deep dive into the curious bioenergy case study of Red Rock Biofuels, a woody biomass to aviation biofuels project that has received tens of millions of dollars of public money but has not yet produced even one gallon of fuel.

Feedstock Demand for Biofuels Creates High Risk for Global Forests

What if one of California’s most highly celebrated pathways for achieving ‘decarbonization’ could actually increase pressure on increasingly rare tropical forests? To look into this contradiction Terra Verde welcomes Dr Chris Malins, the founder of the private consultancy Cerulogy. In the interview we learn of his research on the global land use impacts resulting from providing feedstocks for the increased production of liquid biofuels across the United States, including at refineries in the San Francisco Bay Area.

California Climate Policy Incentivizes Factory Farm Manure Gold Rush

One of the greatest climate challenges for Californians is coming to grips with the perverse outcomes of the states markets-based mechanisms for managing emissions. Public interest attorney Brent Newell joins Terra Verde to describe efforts to address the harms from factory farm pollution and the environmental injustice embedded in the false climate solution of biogas from industrial animal agriculture. In the second half of this hour long fund drive special of Terra Verde we hear from J Jordan, who works with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability to design interventions in Sacramento that elevate the imperative of addressing these pressing issues.

Bioenergy and Geoengineering in California: Threats and Community Resistance

To open this week’s episode an attorney from Communities for a Better Environment joins Terra Verde to describe the rubber stamp permitting of the conversion of refineries in the SF Bay Area to high deforestation risk liquid biofuels. The second featured interview is with an organizer from the Indigenous Environmental Network who tells listeners how a delegation of indigenous stakeholders traveled from Alaska to California to Stop the Arctic Ice Project, a multi-million dollar geoengineering experiment that threatens ecosystems and violates indigenous communities rights to consent.

Fenceline Tour of Phillips 66 Refinery in Rodeo Exposes Hard Realities of Proposed Conversion to Biofuels

This episode of Terra Verde features field interviews with Contra Costa County residents with decades of collective experience in responding to the public health and safety threats of the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo, one of two San Francisco Bay Area refineries pursuing permits to convert their operations to high deforestation risk soy feedstock biofuels.

A sample of episodes is offered here, there are more links to episodes in the side bar of this blog, like what I am keeping at my Soundcloud page (more on that later!). Though I am still looking to see if I can establish my own radio show in the future, for now I am happy to say that I will keep producing occasional episodes for KPFA Terra Verde.

And now all the KPFA Terra Verde episodes are up as the Earth Island Journal podcast!

All we ask is that listeners post, listen and share!