Lawless Planet

When you hear the term “civil disobedience,” most people think about mass demonstrations. But sometimes, the most effective protest involves a single individual willing to disrupt the system. In 2008, Tim DeChristopher aka “Bidder 70” bought $1.8 million worth of oil and gas leases in Utah that he never intended to pay for. Tim was sentenced to two years in federal prison and became an accidental martyr in the climate change movement. Nearly 20 years later, we ask him: Did it make a difference?

Featured in this episode:
Tim DeChristopher

Sources:
Gravitas Documentaries’s Bidder 70
Jeff Goodell’s Rolling Stone article “America’s Most Creative Climate Criminal” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/meet-americas-most-creative-climate-criminal-196050/
Bibi van der Zee’s Inside Climate News article “Utah Climate Activist Found Guilty of Making False Bids on Energy Leases” https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04032011/tim-dechristopher-utah-oil-gas-auction-trial-activist/
Brandon Loomis’ The Salt Lake Tribune article “DeChristopher goes on trial, but does he have a defense?”
https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=51289931&itype=CMSID
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With the arrival of the second Trump administration, many employees at the Environmental Protection Agency have felt like they’re under attack – from their own boss. Under its new chief Lee Zeldin, the EPA has slashed budgets, programs, and staff, all in the name of what Zeldin calls rooting out “waste, fraud, and abuse” and “driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion.” On this episode, we talk to EPA insiders about how the cuts have impacted their lives and careers, and the programs they care so passionately about.
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Don Blankenship grew up poor in the heart of West Virginia coal country, but rose to become a union-busting CEO with a track record prioritizing profits over safety. For decades, he operated with seeming impunity, even as his company, Massey Energy, spilled toxic coal slurry into local waterways, and its miners died in preventable accidents. Then, in 2010, a disaster too big to ignore finally brought Blankenship down. But what does his long career reveal about an industry that the Trump administration is trying to revitalize?

Sources:
Peter A. Galuszka's book Thunder on the Mountain: Death at Massey and the Dirty Secrets Behind Big Coal
Sludge documentary
Mine War on Blackberry Creek documentary
CBS’s 60 Minutes report “From inmate to candidate: Who is Don Blankenship?”
Jeff Goodell’s Rolling Stone article “Don Blankenship: The Dark Lord of Coal”
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/don-blankenship-the-dark-lord-of-coal-country-184288/
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In July 1979, just months after a nuclear accident at Three Mile Island gripped the nation, the largest radioactive spill in U.S. history quietly unfolded on a Navajo reservation in Church Rock, New Mexico — and almost no one noticed. A dam at a uranium mine tailings pond burst, causing 94 million gallons of toxic waste to flood a nearby river, poisoning the water, livestock, and people. Through the eyes of an activist who worked at the mine, we reveal how decades of corporate cover-ups and government indifference turned the ‘yellow dirt’ on America's largest Native reservation into something dangerous.

Featured in this episode:
Larry King

Sources:
Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed by Judy Pasternak
The River that Harms documentary
Marley Shebala’s Navajo Times article “Poison in the earth” https://navajotimes.com/news/2009/0709/072309uranium.php

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On New Year’s Eve 2024, an Uber driver named Jonathan Rinderknecht allegedly started a fire in the Pacific Palisades. The fire was quickly contained, but it lingered on underground as a “zombie fire.” Days later, fueled by Santa Ana Winds, it exploded into the Palisades Fire, the most destructive conflagration in Los Angeles history. A second fire, ignited just hours later, destroyed much of neighboring Altadena. In the aftermath, angry residents wanted accountability – but who is to blame for a fire when the earth is now a tinderbox?

Featured in this episode:
Brad Weisshaupt, LA County Fire Department
Traci Park, LA City Council
India Bradley
Nic Arnzen, Altadena Town Council
Daniel Swain, University of California

Sources:
The Los Angeles Times
KTLA 5 News
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