Deceleration’s irregular podcast talking all things climate justice, rooted in the South Texas bioregion. Subscribe via iTunes or Stitcher.
28: Voices from Climate Justice Alliance’s Our Power Communities Summit
Deceleration Podcast #28: In the middle of October, San Antonio played host to the Climate Justice Alliance’s Our Power Communities Summit. The gathering called together roughly 50 frontline community environmental-justice organizers from around the nation to “reground” the alliance members and begin developing a collective response to emerging so-called false solutions to the climate crisis.
Order of appearance:
Christian Rodriguez, Ironbound Community Corp
Angel Ramos, The People’s Port Authority
Mackenzie Marshland, Florida Rising
Alejandria Lyons, New Mexico No False Solutions
Ayana Grace, Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network
Katt Ramos, Richmond Our Power Coalition
Christine Cordero, Asian-Pacific Environmental Network
More on this topic via Deceleration.
27: Armon Alex and the Climate Movement’s ‘Clean Slate’ Challenge in Corpus Christi
Deceleration Podcast #27: In the shadow of the port shipping most of all US crude oil to the rest of the world, four ‘Clean Slate’ candidates are running for local City Council seats. They are bound together by shared values and policy interests—including a prioritization of clean air and water and the defeat of proposed desalination projects being built almost exclusively to benefit industrial users. One candidate is the president of the local teacher’s union. One is a history professor and Sierra Club member. Another helps lead the local League of Women Voters.
Guest: Armon Alex, Council Candidate
More on this topic via Deceleration.
26: Thanos Was An Ecofascist (But You Don’t Have to Be)
Deceleration Podcast #26: This week, Deceleration speaks with the amazing team behind the Anti-Creep Climate Initiative, who utilize Marvel characters to educate the public about the dangerous fallacies behind fascistic thinking on global environmental challenges. Their webzine is a powerful and gorgeous read. In it they demonstrate how many of these dangerous concepts come straight out of Western environmental canon. They also show clearly why they are logically wrong. And who they ultimately serve. Wanna help stop the creep of ecofascistic ideas informing the manifestos of racist mass murderers? Here’s some powerful food for thought.
Guests:
April Anson, Cassie Galentine, Shane Hall, Alex Menrisky, & Bruno Seraphin
More on this topic via Deceleration.
25: Cris Eugster & Evergreen Bringing New Solar Model to Texas
Deceleration Podcast #25: Somewhere in between decentralized rooftop solar and sprawling rural utility-scale solar farms is a middle path that could allow companies go 100-percent renewable in under a year. New solar startup Evergreen is about to unleash the “Goldilocks” of solar with a trio of projects in South Texas.
Guest: Cris Eugster, Evergreen
More on this topic via Deceleration.
24: Who are the Tree and Bird Protectors of Brackenridge Park?
Deceleration Podcast #24: Who are the Tree and Bird Protectors of Brackenridge Park? They’ve been smeared as disinformation agents for linking a campaign to forcefully dislocate a thriving rookery of migratory birds the Brackenridge bond project that would claim more than 105 trees, ostensibly to restore and repair historic structures in the park. After saving the trees they pivoted to resist ongoing efforts to drive migratory birds away from Brackenridge’s headwaters and uncovered evidence of forced displacement inside the SA Zoo.
Guests: Alesia Garlock and Daniel Armstrong
More on this topic via Deceleration.
23: ‘His Name is Albert’: Climate, Housing, Displacement, Mutual Aid
Deceleration Podcast #23: What do we learn from a year-long intervention on behalf of an unhoused neighbor who lost limbs to Winter Storm Uri? That it takes dozens of interveners to make up for San Antonio’s broken safety net and lack of climate preparation. A serialized intervention by Deceleration Co-Editor Marisol Cortez.
Guests:
Maria Turvin, Yanawana Herbolarios founder/operations director
Rachel Tucker, Dir Constituent Services for Councilmember Teri Castillo(D5)
Marisol Cortez, Deceleration Co-Editor, Author
More on this topic via Deceleration.
22: George Garza Jr. On The New Deceleration Theme Musics
Deceleration Podcast #22: Deceleration talks to San Antonio musician George Garza Jr., well known and loved for this work with Pop Pistol and other projects, about the ideas and processes that went into creating the new Deceleration theme music. Some sound recordings came right off the street, but that world-to-come vibe came straight from the heart.
Guest: George Garza Jr.
21: Talkin’ Trash with Mary Elizabeth Cantú of Spare Parts
Deceleration Podcast #21: Deceleration talks to Mary Elizabeth Cantú, founder and director of the Spare Parts Center for Creative Reuse, on their decade of work using ethics of reuse to assist underfunded educators in promoting creative work and critical thinking. How can waste open up space for thinking about the ecological and human labor devalued within capitalist economies?
Guest: Mary Elizabeth Cantú
More on this topic via Deceleration.
20: Darby Riley and CPS Energy Lawsuit
Deceleration Podcast #20: Several incoming San Antonio Council members want to freeze utility disconnections, reform CPS Energy rates, and close the Spruce coal plant early. They’d do well to listen to the attorney fighting CPS Energy’s lawsuit to preserve the people’s right to reform the utility by petition.
19: Karla Aguilar, the Alamo, and How to Recover from White Supremacy
Deceleration Podcast #19: Deceleration caught up with Karla Aguilar, development director of American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions about a number of pressing political issues, including potential state recognition for the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation, now pending at the Texas Legislature. We speak at some length about the Settler/Colonial mindset at an outgrowth of white supremacy and how such ways of thinking manifest in the struggles around the redvelopment of San Antonio de Valero, aka The Alamo.
18: Words for Birds, Day One (2021)
Deceleration Podcast #18: Day One of the 13th Annual “Words for Birds”: A Poetic Celebration and a Cry for Protection! Featuring Masauki & Guadalupe Lagunes Jimenez, Dyhanara Rios, RitaMaria Contreras, Eddie Vega, Erika Maria Garza Johnson, Javier Fuentes Vargas, Alesia Garlock, the puppeteering of Mobi Warren, Kamala Platt, Laura Schultz, Megha Sood, Norma Jean Moore, and Odilia Galván Rodríguez.
17: San Antonio’s ‘War on Birds’ Keeps Expanding
Deceleration Podcast #17: Deceleration caught up with local bird photographer, friend, and defender Alesia Garlock about the newest warning signs: “Bird Mitigation Plan” signage promising dawn-and-dusk bird harassment at Woodlawn Lake. We spoke as dozens of Yellow-Crown Night Herons nuzzled and roosted above us. At least one mother to be was obviously splayed over her eggs. Can San Antonio’s War on the Birds end here?
16: Ralph Garcia, the Polar Vortex, & San Antonio’s Disabled Community
Deceleration Podcast #16: With much of Texas icing over due to Arctic weather’s dangerous slide across the Plains over normally not 10-degree San Antonio, Ralph Garcia has had access to power for no longer than 45 minutes at a time for the last 48 hours. In this sustained cold-weather assault, millions have lost power because of the failure of state energy planners and reduced energy flowing from all power networks, but most conspicuously gas power plants. The climate crisis is no game. But the disabled community is an overlooked, incredibly vulnerable, demographic that often goes overlooked.
15: Homelessness Advocate Molly Wright is on a Hunger Strike in San Antonio
Deceleration Podcast #15: Deceleration talks with housing justice activist Molly Wright about her decision to begin a hunger strike to protest the City of San Antonio’s inadequate response to homelessness and housing insecurity.
14: Rights of Nature Movement Reaches San Antonio
Deceleration Podcast #14: Deceleration talks with attorneys and organizers affiliated with the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER) about the Rights of Nature movement globally, as well as what it might look like locally in San Antonio.
13: Fabiola Ochoa Torralba on Decolonizing Dance
Deceleration Podcast #13: Community-based dancer Fabiola Ochoa Torralba discusses her research on “bird movement vocabulary” and the wider projects of decolonizing dance.
12: Jim LaVilla-Havelin on Words for Birds
Deceleration Podcast #12: San Antonio poet Jim LaVilla-Havelin discusses the origin and significance of National Poetry Month’s Words for Birds and reads one of his poems included in the digital zine “Words for Birds 2020: Poetics for Pandemics.”
11: Liberty Heise on Monarchs, Marathons, and Migration
Deceleration Podcast #11: Deceleration speaks with local runner, writer, and environmental educator Liberty Heise about her participation in the Monarch Ultra, a 4300km, transnational run that follows the migratory path of monarch butterflies from Ontario, Canada to the Sierra Madre mountains in Central Mexico.
10: March for Science San Antonio
Deceleration Podcast #10: Speaking with Peter Bella, organizer for March for Science San Antonio, and Gunnar Schade, atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University about MfS, San Antonio’s draft climate action plan, climate denialism, Greg Abbott, and more.
09: Voices of San Antonio’s Climate Plan
Deceleration Podcast #9: Members of San Antonio’s Climate Action & Adaptation Plan’s Technical Working Groups and Steering Committee (plus one consultant) describe their experiences helping develop what could be the city’s first climate plan—and their hopes and concerns for its future implementation After more than a year in the making, the plan is being released for public consideration on Friday, January 25, 2019. More at: deceleration.news/2019/01/18/san-a…g-members-speak/
08: Our Climate Commitments and the World’s Island States
Deceleration Podcast #8: A conversation with Ursula Rakova of Tulele Peisa, a nonprofit formed by the elders of the Carteret Islands to direct the relocation of their communities from their low-lying island chain to the “big island” of Bougainville in Papau New Guinea. While the Paris framework considered 1.5 Celsius an aspirational target, increasingly cities are declaring 1.5 their goal right out of the gate, as has San Antonio. This movement from ‘less-than-two’ to 1.5 or less is hardly incidental but rather life or death for many of the world’s low-lying island states, representatives of which pushed back hard on the 2-degree Paris proposal, insisting they needed “1.5 to stay alive.”
07: Pocacito: ‘From Eight to Infinity’
Deceleration Podcast #7: This morning, Deceleration had the opportunity to interview representatives of Pocacito (Post-Carbon Cities of Tomorrow), an initiative of Ecologic Institute whose goal is to build trans-Atlantic solidarity and intellectual exchange around local creative efforts for a renewable economy and planet. As part of their “Eight to Infinity” tour (think eight cities, then lay the eight on its side to invoke ideas of a permanent economy/culture), they are on a mission to seed community building efforts around climate and environment with an understanding of the circular economy.
06: Indigenous Resistance and the Global Climate Action Summit
Deceleration Podcast #6: Not all was well at this month’s Global Climate Action Summit, heralded as a significant milestone in the world struggle with climate crisis. And not all the solutions were being found inside the conference rooms and banquet halls. Outside, protestors, led by indigenous leaders from around the country and beyond, were warning that in order respond effectively to this moment of dangerous imbalance requires bottom-up and community-level engagement. Greg Harman of the Texas Sierra Club speaks with Frankie Orona, executive director of the Society of Native Nations, and Juan B. Mancias, tribal chair of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, about their anti-extraction work and attendance at the San Francisco summit.
05: Nuclear Wastes West Texas
Deceleration Podcast #5: The “Say No to Radioactive Waste” tour crossing Texas this week features a giant inflatable ‘cask.’ It represents the effort of state, national, and international anti-nuclear groups to shut down a proposal that would have nuclear power plants shipping their high-level radioactive waste from around the United States to a West Texas facility for long-term storage. Following a press conference outside San Antonio’s Alamodome on Wednesday, September 26, 2018, Deceleration had the following conversation with Karen Hadden (SEED Coalition), Diane D’Arrigo (NIRS), and Kerstin Rudek (Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz).
04: CAAP: Buildings as Carbon Sinks
Deceleration Podcast #4: What is a truly sustainable building? Is it about how much dirty energy it consumes? The clean energy it produces? What about the building materials themselves and the “embodied carbon” they represent? What if those materials also were able to absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and sequester it from the environment? This is the subject of sustainable buildings leader Bruce King’s coming lecture at San Antonio College. It’s a message of special value in San Antonio today, as the City pursues the development of its first climate action plan.
03: Can San Antonio’s CAAP Seed a Food Revolution?
Deceleration Podcast #3: Rising temperatures, stronger storms, depleting global fertilizer supplies all mean extractive industrial agriculture is going to take a big hit from climate change. As the City’s first climate plan percolates, a local foods revolution continues to quietly gather steam in San Antonio. Join the Alamo Group of the Sierra Club for a conversation with some of the leaders of the local food movement.
Guests include: Mitch Hagney is the founder of the LocalSprout Food Hub, an urban farm and solar-powered gathering spot for small food businesses. Kate Jaceldo is a co-founder of the Compost Queens, a family business tackling the food waste side of that equation, helping residents and businesses convert discarded food into fresh soil. Nadia Gaona is founder of San Antonio Permaculture, a group of people from diverse backgrounds who come together to learn and share experiences of growing their own food and to discuss ways to create more regenerative communities.
Hagney, Jaceldo, and Gaona join Lone Star Sierra Club organizer Greg Harman to discuss the burgeoning local foods movement that could help San Antonio evolve into a more sustainable city and ultimately a carbon sink, absorbing climate pollution from the atmosphere, a goal of the Sierra Club and Climate Action SA.
02: Tupac Enrique Acosta talks DACA, Abya Yala, and Planetary Constitution
Deceleration Podcast #2: Tupac Enrique Acosta of Tonatierra speaks with Deceleration’s Marisol Cortez on the March 5th DACA deadline from an Indigenous perspective, and the need for catalytic cultural shifts in how we conceptualize citizenship and constitutionality.
01: ‘The Kingdom of Hawai’i is Within You’
Deceleration Podcast #1: In San Antonio, Lanny Sinkin is known as the former director of Solar San Antonio. Today he is known as Alii Manao Nui, adviser to Edmund Keli’i Silva Jr., who he considers the rightful leader of a soon-to-be-restored Kingdom of Hawai’i. Here I speak with Sinkin about his transition from solar advocate to king’s advisor, his work with the Temple of Lono, fighting the Thirty Meter Telescope at the sacred mountain of Mauna Kea, the evolution of Dolphinville, and the ethics of swimming with whales and dolphins.
