Damages

Damages

Law & Order meets the climate crisis as we dig into the stories behind the hundreds of climate cases around the globe.

Episodes

The Massive Climate Case that Shell Both Won and Lost, and What It Means for the Future of Global Climate Litigation

December 2, 2024 • 20 mins
In November, a Dutch court ruled in Shell's favor on an appeal in a big international climate case. It got loads of headlines around the world, but it wasn't quite the win for Shell that a lot of media coverage has made it out to be. Although it walked back some things, the court reaffirmed a key component of the original ruling: that Shell is legally required to reduce its global emissions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...
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New Research Shows the Clean Air Act Always Intended to Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions

August 15, 2024 • 31 mins
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts vs. EPA that when the U.S. Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970, climate science was “in its infancy,” implying that government officials could never have intended for the legislation to cover the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2022, SCOTUS doubled down on that idea, ruling in West Virginia v EPA that since the Clean Air Act didn't explicitly talk about climate chan...
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The Real Free Speech Threat: In El Salvador a Cold Case Murder Has Become a Weapon for Silencing Environmental Activists

July 18, 2024 • 41 mins
In 2017, El Salvador became the first country in the world to pass an outright ban on mining. It was an effort to protect the country's water, and its people. Now, self-proclaimed "coolest dictator in the world" Nayib Bukele wants to bring mining back to boost the economy, which took a major hit thanks to his embrace of Bitcoin as the national currency in 2021. The activists who helped pass the ban are standing in his way. The solu...
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Could You Really Charge Oil Companies with Murder? Plus: Supreme Court Climate Update

July 9, 2024 • 36 mins
Public Citizen has been working with various prosecutors to explore the idea of using criminal law to hold oil companies accountable for climate change. In the wake of recent Supreme Court rulings, it seems smarter than ever to explore the remedies offered by criminal law, but is it really viable? The group's senior climate policy counsel, Aaron Regunburg, joins us to discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/ad...
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The Coordinated Attack on Shareholder Activism

June 25, 2024 • 52 mins
The backlash against ESG is continuing, with a string of lawsuits aimed at shutting down shareholder activism. We don't often talk about shareholder activism in the vein of protecting protest, but it's absolutely part of the story. Andrew Behar, CEO of shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, joins us to explain what's going on, and why anyone who cares about basic rights needs to be tuning into the ESG fight. Learn more about your a...
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The New Carbon Majors Report + Swiss Elders Win Landmark Climate Case

April 12, 2024 • 42 mins
Lots of news lately on stories we've been following, so in today's episode: an update! The landmark Carbon Majors report has been updated with some surprising new data, and the European Court of Human Rights has sent down an historic ruling that will shape how EU legislators look at energy and climate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The Real Free Speech Threat: In Nigeria's Ogoniland, Protestors Still Fighting to Hold Oil Accompanies Accountable

March 22, 2024 • 43 mins
Shell announced in late 2023 that it would be shutting down all of its onshore activities in Nigeria and concentrating its efforts offshore. It leaves behind poisoned water, multiple political and economic crises, and a country that is measurably worse off today than when its oil industry began. Meanwhile the government continues to target environmental activists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The Real Free Speech Threat: Department of Homeland Security, the Manufactured "EcoTerrorist" Panic, and Cop City

January 31, 2024 • 39 mins
The U.S. government's definition of what constitutes an "ecoterrorist" has long driven backlash against environmental activists and in recent years that definition has only broadened. Investigative reporter and Drilled senior editor Alleen Brown dug into this recently and found that the Department of Homeland Security had been warning officials in Atlanta about the threat posed by "Defend the Atlanta Forest" for months before polic...
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The Real Free Speech Threat: Meet the UN's First Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders

January 31, 2024 • 73 mins
In June 2022, Michel Forst became the first UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders. In that role he has spent the past year visiting various countries and speaking out about the increasingly onerous laws and aggressive tactics being used against climate protestors. Today he released a statement on the UK, saying he is "extremely worried" about "the increasingly severe crackdowns on environmental defenders in the United Ki...
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The Real Free Speech Threat: How UK Courts Became the New Climate Protest Battleground

January 27, 2024 • 33 mins
About a decade after UK courts made history with the first "climate necessity" ruling in history, the UK government has passed new laws that not only restrict what protesters can do, but also how protesters are allowed to defend themselves in court. Some judges don't apply the new laws so strictly, but others have held people in contempt for just trying to explain themselves. In some courtrooms, the climate necessity defense has be...
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The Real Free Speech Threat: What Happened At Bayou Bridge? The Other End of the Dakota Access Pipeline

January 27, 2024 • 44 mins
While protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation garnered international news coverage, at the southern end of the pipeline, cops moonlighting as pipeline security were suppressing free speech with impunity. In this episode, reporter Karen Savage tells us what happened at Bayou Bridge, and what lessons the story holds for the climate movement and for anyone who believes in the importanc...
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The Real Free Speech Threat: Seven Years Later, an Environmental Impact Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline

January 27, 2024 • 37 mins
In December 2023, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers closed the comment period on its draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,172-mile pipeline that’s been pumping 500,000 barrels of oil per day since May 2017. The pipeline runs from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Over the past six years, every court in the country has ruled th...
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The Real Free Speech Threat: The Fossil Fuel Industry Meets Indigenous Protest with "Redwashing" and Repression in Canada

January 27, 2024 • 44 mins
As we resume our season focused on the global criminalization of climate protest, reporter Martha Troian brings us to Canada, where the Wet'suwet'en people have been fighting for years against a gas pipeline they never authorized on their territory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The Real Free Speech Threat: On the Tomato Soup "Controversy"

January 27, 2024 • 32 mins
Globally, climate activism has shifted over the past few years. It’s more constant now and includes more direct action than ever before. Some of that action has critics, including climate scientists and climate advocates, clutching their pearls and worrying that protest will turn the public away from the urgent need to act on the climate crisis. But social science researchers who study structural change and protest say there’s no h...
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The Real Free Speech Threat: In Brazil, A Tale as Old as Colonization—Why Indigenous Land Defenders Are Particularly Targeted by Extractive Industries

January 27, 2024 • 29 mins
From Ecuador to North Dakota, British Columbia to New Zealand, the backlash against Indigenous-led environmental protest is always particularly harsh, infused with colonialist entitlement to land, water, and other resources. Historian Nick Estes walks us through what that looks like in the U.S., and the great team behind the documentary The Territory brings us a recent example from Brazil. Check out the film here. Learn more about...
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The Real Free Speech Threat: Joanna Smith on "Conspiring Against the United States" with...Fingerpaint

January 27, 2024 • 49 mins
In April 2023, Joanna Oltman Smith walked into the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. with fellow activist Tim Martin, and smeared water-soluble kids' finger paint on the glass display case containing a Degas statue called "Little Dancer." The two read off a statement about the importance of protecting actual, living children as well as we do sculptures of them. Smith and Martin figured they would be charged with vandalism, but e...
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Damages Recommends: Outrage and Optimism—How to Talk About Climate So That People Will Listen

October 24, 2023 • 59 mins
Welcome to Outrage + Optimism, where they examine issues at the forefront of the climate crisis, interview change-makers, and transform anger into productive dialogue for building a sustainable future. In this episode, the hosts discuss the slow progress made at the negotiations in Bonn and how the perceived lack of direction has led many in the climate community to feel anxious about how successful talks will be in Dubai later in ...
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Guyana Update: Gas to Energy for Guyana, or Problem to Profit for Exxon?

October 14, 2023 • 28 mins
A new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) looks at the details of Guyana's planned "Gas to Energy" project and finds mostly benefits for ExxonMobil and more debt for Guyana. Read the full report here: https://ieefa.org/articles/guyana-gas-energy-project-unnecessary-and-financially-unsustainable Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The Real Free Speech Threat: Loss Is On the Calendar in Nigeria

October 1, 2023 • 32 mins
We're bringing you this crossover episode from our sister podcast, Inherited, because there's a way in which the constant vilification of protestors and criminalization of their actions has effectively distracted a lot of people from the reason they're out in the streets or in museums or at sporting events in the first place: the climate crisis is already having a devastating impact on communities around the world, and it's only go...
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The Real Free Speech Threat: Meet the Shadowy Global Network Vilifying Climate Protestors

October 1, 2023 • 44 mins
It’s no coincidence that the backlash against climate protest looks the same from country to country. Not only is industry sharing tactics across borders, but also the Atlas Network—a global network of nearly 600 libertarian think tanks—has been swapping strategies and rhetoric for decades. This episode features reporting from Amy Westervelt, Lyndal Rowlands, and Julianna Merullo from Drilled, and Geoff Dembicki from DeSmog. You ca...
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