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.
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!
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