Lawless Planet

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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2015, news broke that Exxon’s own scientists had known for decades that burning fossil fuels was causing global warming. To raise awareness, climate activists launched a campaign called “Exxon Knew.” But almost immediately, they noticed something strange: their private emails seemed to be getting leaked to the press. They were getting hacked – but by who?  Featured in this episode:Kert Davies, Center for Climate IntegrityJohn Scott Railton, The Citizen LabSources:The Citzen Lab’s “Dark Basin: Uncovering a Massive Hack-for-Hire Operation”: https://citizenlab.ca/research/dark-basin-uncovering-a-massive-hack-for-hire-operation/ Inside Climate News’s “Exxon: The Road Not Taken”: https://insideclimatenews.org/project/exxon-the-road-not-taken/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The device you’re using to listen to this podcast almost certainly contains cobalt. It’s a vital component of rechargeable batteries, which are essential to electric vehicles, laptops, and smartphones. But most of the world’s known cobalt reserves are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where mines are plagued by child labor, human trafficking, and deadly working conditions.Featured in this episode:Siddharth KaraSources:Siddharth Kara’s book Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives and his report “Blood Batteries” https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/beacons-of-excellence/rights-lab/resources/reports-and-briefings/2025/august/blood-batteries.pdf Nicolas Niarchos’ reporting in The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/the-dark-side-of-congos-cobalt-rush Amnesty International’s report “This is What We Die For” https://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/this_what_we_die_for_-_report.pdfSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Florida state wildlife officials begin to suspect that someone is illegally harvesting alligator eggs, they launch Operation Alligator Thief. At its heart: a veteran officer named Jeff Babauta, who delays his retirement to go deep undercover as a real Florida Man, hoping to infiltrate the insular world of gator farming.Featured in this episode:Jeff BabautaRebecca RennerSources:Rebecca Renner’s book Gator Country: Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the EvergladesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today, Lawless Planet brings you an episode from our friends at Drilled Media. Season 12 of their flagship podcast is called SLAPP’d, and it tells another side of a story we covered earlier in our episode “Surveillance and Sabotage on the Dakota Access Pipeline.”Greenpeace, which was only tangentially involved in the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, has been slapped with a $666 million bill for damages...despite the fact that DAPL was built, and has been making Energy Transfer millions of dollars for years. How did we get here? Cody Hall, an Indigenous water protector who was a key figure during the Standing Rock protests and was initially also targeted in Energy Transfer's suit, walks us through how things went down back in 2016 and 2017, and where this suit began.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When scam artist Gregory Zaoui got out of prison in 2004, he had a plan to go straight – by selling solar panels. But when he learned about a new carbon trading system that was supposed to reduce CO2 emissions, he saw an obvious loophole. And soon, he found himself at the center of a fraud scheme so extensive that it was hard to tell if the carbon market was doing anything to fight climate change at all.Featured in this episode:Jessica Camille AguirreSources:Jessica Camille Aguirre’s reporting in The Atavaist Magazine: https://magazine.atavist.com/2024/watch-it-burn-france-europe-carbon-fraud-scam-vat-betrayal Alec Henry’s podcast “Le Déclic” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkYkJiFl8PgSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Humans have a long history of deploying wild beasts in wartime, from horse-mounted cavalry to Hannibal riding into Rome on an elephant. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, a mysterious group of dolphins appeared in the Black Sea. It signaled a return to an old program that many thought had died with the fall of the Soviet Union. For years, the USSR trained dolphins to advance their military goals. And so did America. Special thanks to:Pavel GoldinSergei Dobrynin and Mark KrutovBlair IrvineSources:Frontline’s The Story of Navy Dolphins: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/whales/etc/navycron.htmlBBC's Secrets of the Spy Whale: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002504pSergei Dobrynin and Mark Krutov’s reporting: https://www.svoboda.org/a/31006448.htmlSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What occurred shortly after midnight in Bhopal, India on December 3, 1984 is still being felt – and fought over – four decades later. The scale of the tragedy, involving a pesticide factory and maddening lack of accountability by its corporate owner, raise questions about whether its victims will ever know justice. And have we learned enough to stop something like it from happening again?Special thanks to:Satinath Sarangi, find out more about his work at Sambhavna ClinicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.