Last Born In The Wilderness

Journalist and author Shane Burley joined me to discuss the specter of political violence in the United States, remarking on the recent assassination of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder and right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and the fallout of that event. // Support the work + listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

Christopher B. Zeichmann, scholar of religion and antiquity, joined me in an enlightening discussion about his new book, Radical Antiquity: Free Love Zoroastrians, Farming Pirates, and Ancient Uprisings, released through Pluto Press. // Support the work + listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

Thea Riofrancos joined me to discuss her new book, Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, released through W.W. Norton. The green capitalist energy transition is underway. In what ways does alternative energy—so-called sustainable or green energy—differ from the fossil fuel extraction, distribution, and consumption that has underlain the global capitalist system since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution? Where are these sites of extraction? What critical minerals are being sought? Who stands to benefit and lose? What are the ecological impacts? And finally, how have various iterations of the left and the right embraced or rejected this emerging paradigm? // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/thea-riofrancos // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Thea Riofrancos joined me to discuss her new book, Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, just released through W.W. Norton. // Support the work + listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

Roy Scranton returns to the podcast to discuss his new book, Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress, recently published by Stanford University Press. Scranton describes our moment as an impasse. We struggle to narrativize and imagine our path through. The vision of our collective horizons is muddied by the sheer unknowability of what the near and distant future holds. Narratives of progress have brought us to this confluence of crises as complex global systems collapse and shift under the weight of material limits on a hotter, more chaotic world. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/roy-scranton-2 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Roy Scranton returns to the podcast to discuss his new book, Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress, recently published by Stanford University Press. // Support the work + listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

Counterculture author and artist Stewart Home joined me in a discussion about his new book, Fascist Yoga: Grifters, Occultists, White Supremacists, and the New Order In Wellness, recently published by Pluto Press. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/stewart-home // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Counterculture author and artist Stewart Home joined me in a discussion about his new book, Fascist Yoga: Grifters, Occultists, White Supremacists, and the New Order In Wellness, recently published by Pluto Books. // Support the work + listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

I am joined by returning guest John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy in Focus and author, to discuss the dramatic shifts and fissures in the global "rules-based order." Since our last interview in March 2020, successive crises have challenged the underlying basis of international law and the coherence of the global economic system. Taking our previous interview into account—an examination of the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, situating it historically—I asked John to help us make sense of the first six months of the second Trump administration. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/john-feffer-3 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

I am joined by returning guest John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy in Focus and author, to discuss the dramatic shifts and fissures in the global "rules-based order." // Support the work + listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

Anti-zionist writer and agitator Amanda Gelender joins me to discuss what she describes as the Jewish community's widespread fascism problem. I ask Amanda about her upbringing in a Jewish community and what role Zionism had in her perceptions of the State of Israel and Occupied Palestine, including stepping back from the question itself and interrogating the often unexamined contexts and built-in assumptions the question contains. We converse on how "Jewish feelings" are weaponized in the discourse on the Israel-US genocide of Palestinians in Gaza as an attempt to label any calls for its end and support for resistance to it as antisemitic. And lastly, another thread we pull on is the question of what fascism is and how, in our view, Zionism contained the seeds of fascism since its inception and nascent colonization efforts in Palestine. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/amanda-gelender // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https:

Anti-zionist writer and agitator Amanda Gelender joins me to discuss what she describes as the Jewish community's widespread fascism problem. // Support the work + listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

I’m joined by Lyle Lewis, former endangered species biologist and author of Racing to Extinction: Why Humanity Will Soon Vanish. We discuss his decades long career working under the US Department of the Interior, and the various bureaucratic hurdles that stood in the way of protecting and preserving endangered species in the various roles he served there. Lewis holds a unique position, and describes why, and how, the human species will, in a relatively short time, face extinction. // Episode notes + transcript: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/lyle-lewis // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

I’m joined by Lyle Lewis, former endangered species biologist and author of Racing to Extinction: Why Humanity Will Soon Vanish. We discuss his decades long career working under the US Department of the Interior, the various bureaucratic hurdles that stood in the way of protecting and preserving endangered species, and why Lewis holds a unique position to describe why, and how, the human species will, in a relatively short time, face extinction. // Support the work + listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

Long Covid Action Project (LCAP) founder and journalist Joshua Pribanic returns to the podcast, along with artist and LCAP researcher Amy Mitchell, to discuss their groundbreaking new book, A National Treatment and Research Agenda for Long Covid. They detail the evidence of how this virus persists in the body after infection, and how the HIV-AIDS epidemic is relevant to understanding what Long Covid is and what a comprehensive treatment and research agenda for it looks like. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/lcap-activists-3 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Long Covid Action Project (LCAP) founder and journalist Joshua Pribanic returns to the podcast, along with artist and LCAP researcher Amy Mitchell, to discuss their groundbreaking new book, A National Treatment and Research Agenda for Long Covid. They detail the evidence of how this virus persists in the body after infection, and how the HIV-AIDS epidemic is relevant to understanding what Long Covid is and what a comprehensive treatment and research agenda for it looks like. // Support the work + listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

I speak with Dr. Daniel Swain, climate scientist and science communicator. We begin with the recent news of the Trump administration's deep cuts to current and future research on the climate crisis, and what impact this will have on our ability to track weather and climate trends in the years to come. I asked him to elaborate on his role as a weather and climate science communicator, especially in disaster scenarios, like during the devastating wildfires that swept through Southern California in January, which is "expected to become the costliest global wildfire disaster on record.” And on track with that subject, I asked Swain to explain the dynamic of hydroclimate volatility, also called hydroclimate whiplash, and how this dynamic can help us understand how the wildfires in California become so destructive so quickly, and the role anthropogenic global heating has in making disasters like this more volatile and far more likely. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/daniel-swa

I speak with Dr. Daniel Swain, climate scientist and communicator, who focuses on the dynamics and impacts of extreme events—including droughts, floods, storms, and wildfires—on a warming planet. I asked Dr. Swain to elaborate on his role as a weather and climate science communicator, especially in disaster scenarios, like during the devastating wildfires that swept through Southern California in January, which is "expected to become the costliest global wildfire disaster on record.” // Support the work + listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

Dr. Jonathan Howard returns to the podcast to discuss the collapse of public health in the United States. After coming on the podcast in 2023 to discuss his book, We Want Them Infected, Dr. Howard provides an update on some of the contrarian doctors and anti-vaccine influencers he has been following before and since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/jonathan-howard-2 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Dr. Jonathan Howard returns to the podcast to discuss the collapse of public health in the United States. After coming on the podcast in 2023 to discuss his book, We Want Them Infected, Dr. Howard provides an update on some of the contrarian doctors and anti-vaccine influencers he has been following before and since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. // Support the work + listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness