Planet Policy Pals Podcast

We have had an amazing year and series sharing stories with our policy pals and now in this last episode of the year, we would like to share two more oil spill stories that reflect what this series was about- how human negligence and rash actions can be detrimental to our continued existence.

The Exxon valdez oil spill was the largest oil spill in the US until Deepwater Horizon and was caused by one man's irresponsibility. The Gulf war oil spill is our pettiest disaster on this list and took decades to recover from.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/environmental-effects-of/

https://www.history.com/topics/1980s/exxon-valdez-oil-spill

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph240/barber1/

http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/7427/

The World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) describes forests as the “lifeblood of our economies and our health.” Forests cover nearly one-third of the global land area and are the source of 75 percent of the world’s freshwater. Nowhere has more native rainforest been wiped out than Borneo. Between 2000 and 2017, 6.04 million hectares of old-growth forest were lost in Borneo, a decline of 14%. It’s time for us to discuss this wonder of nature and how decades of wanton human greed led to it’s decline. Luckily, things have improved, but there is still much work to be done. Join us on this journey of exploration through the Borneo forest.

Follow the link for show notes and references.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_6Q3S1G2IXwg9p_5cQdDA1blPV3ju9NzC90bP4V-9AA/edit?usp=sharing

Captions of transcript available on our Youtube Page

The IPCC is now in its sixth assessment cycle, in which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is producing the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) with contributions by its three Working Groups and a Synthesis Report, three Special Reports, and a refinement to its latest Methodology Report. The Synthesis Report will be the last of the AR6 products, currently due for release in 2022. We briefly discuss just a few of the hard warnings issued by this report and why governments and corporations cannot continue to take a half baked approach to tackling the problem of climate change.

Captions of transcript available on our Youtube Page

Oil was first found in Nigeria in 1956, then a British protectorate, by a joint operation between Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum. A major 1970 oil spill in Ogoniland in the south-east of Nigeria led to thousands of gallons being spilt on farmland and rivers, ultimately leading to a £26m fine for Shell in Nigerian courts 30 years later. With thousands of oil spills and multiple law suits, the situation has continued to worsen and we discuss this example of how reckless exploration can cost human lives.

This week we unpack the entirely avoidable tragedy that has come to be known as the world’s worst industrial disaster. In the night of December 2, 1984, chemical, methyl isocyanate (MIC) spilt out from Union Carbide India Ltd’s (UCIL’s) pesticide factory turned the city of Bhopal into a colossal gas chamber. It was India's first major industrial disaster. At least 30 tonnes of methyl isocyanate gas killed between 15,000 and 20,000 people and affected over 600,000 workers. The Bhopal gas tragedy is dear to our hearts as it is the perfect example of how innocent people and the environment suffer, when we ignore safety for profit.

Follow the link for show notes and references https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ETJBQKUljJzPfdWDjhtD39kIQ9q1OTEWqlDS3f8EzWM/edit?usp=sharing

Captions available on our YouTube channel