Steve Taylor is a freelance journalist and the host of the podcast Breaking Green produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.
Latest by this author
Genetically engineered eucalyptus will worsen a bad situation in Brazil.
By Orin Langelle and Steve Taylor in Environment | Global Justice Ecology Project and Earth Food Life Project | English
Steve Taylor is a freelance journalist and the host of the podcast Breaking Green produced by Global Justice Ecology Project. Taylor began his environmental work in the 1990s opposing clearcutting in Shawnee National Forest. He was awarded the Leo and Kay Drey Award for Leadership from the Missouri Coalition for the Environment for his work as co-founder of the Times Beach Action Group. He has a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s degree in mathematics and has taught at various colleges and for the Saint Louis University Prison Education Program.
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Controversial Genetically Engineered Chestnut Tree Loses Support From Its Backers
Countercurrents | December | 2023
On December 8, the American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) announced it withdrew support “for several pending regulatory petitions that would authorize distribution of transgenic Darling 58 trees outside permitted research plots.” The announcement was shocking, one that should have huge implications for the idea of releasing GMOs into the wild. The petition with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is still pending.
Eurasia Review | August | 2023
Valued for its termite-resistant wood for building purposes, pulp to create products like writing and toilet paper, and its oil, which has numerous health and household benefits, the eucalyptus tree generates big business worldwide. But the eucalyptus industry has a dark side.
Global Justice Ecology Project; Independent Media Institute; Earth Food Life Project
Antiwar and environmental activist Dr. Helen Caldicott warns that policymakers who understate the danger of nuclear weapons don’t have the public’s best interest at heart.
Global Justice Ecology Project; Independent Media Institute; Earth Food Life Project
In this interview, Steve Taylor talks to Nnimmo Bassey, a Nigerian architect and award-winning environmentalist, author, and poet, about the history of exploitation of the African continent, and the failure of the international community to recognize the climate debt owed to the Global South.
Breaking Green | 2023
Marginalized communities are frequently targeted for the placement of toxic projects. Protest and community organizing has been an indispensable strategy in seeking environmental justice and fighting for those living in minority, poor and indigenous communities.
But now, so-called critical infrastructure laws are springing up around the United States in what appears to be a coordinated effort by corporate interests to muzzle protest. These laws seek to criminalize dissent and characterize peaceful protest as acts of terrorism.
On this episode of Breaking Green, we will talk with Basav Sen and Gabrielle Colchete who together authored a July article in In These Times titled, "Cop City and the Escalating War on Environmental Defenders." The story was based on a report they coauthored for the Institute for Policy Studies on the increased criminalization of protest activities.Media by this author
Interview | January | 2024
On February 3rd 2023, a Norfolk Southern train carrying thousands of gallons of hazardous chemicals derailed. It was later set on fire in part to clear the tracks.
Residents have reported illnesses that they believe are the result of exposure to the chemicals. Now complaints are growing that the government’s and EPA’s response has failed them.
An independent testing expert who has been helping residents of East Palestine, Ohio better understand what they have been exposed to is being subpoenaed by Norfolk Southern in what has been described as an attempt to intimidate him.
Also the Government Accountability Project, a storied whistleblower organization, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to shed light on what it believes could be censorship of citizen groups and residents attempting to share information on the East Palestine disaster.
In this episode of Breaking Green, we will talk with Scott Smith, an independent testing expert and CEO of US BioSolutions LLC. He frequently works on the ground in contamination events to help affected communities by investigating and bringing people together to diagnose and solve water contamination events. Smith has been to more than 60 oil and chemical disasters in the US and abroad.
He is a graduate of Baylor and Harvard business school. He was recently subpoenaed by Norfolk Southern regarding his work in East Palestine.
We will also talk with Lesley Pacey, who is an environmental investigator with the Government Accountability Project. Her daughter Sarah was diagnosed with leukemia at age 4 in 2004. She is a cancer survivor, now 23 years old. While living on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay, Lesley noticed several other children who had Leukemia. Lesley demanded a study by the Alabama Department of Health that eventually identified a cancer cluster.
Recently she has focused on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, helping chemically exposed workers, residents and tourists with chronic health issues seek justice in the mass tort related to the disaster.
She works with the Government Accountability Project to educate lawmakers and propose measures that will protect coastal communities from toxic chemical dispersants.
Don't miss an episode and subscribe to Breaking Green wherever you get your podcasts.
This podcast is produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.Interview | November | 2023
In this episode of Breaking Green, Steve Taylor talks with long-time global and climate justice activist Dr. Tadzio Mueller. Dr. Mueller is a political scientist and activist who runs the blog Peaceful Sabotage. He believes that we can no longer avoid significant global warming benchmarks and the physical and political realities necessitate a collapse of social systems in our not so distant future.
Dr. Mueller claims we cannot abandon this unfortunate future to the fascist powers that will rise as world systems degrade. He has come under fire from fellow activists who claim his focus on prepping for a future of climate catastrophe is depressing and defeatist.
But he argues that there can be hope and meaning as we find a way to advance our own values and bring light, hope and love into the darkening landscape. He has recently traveled to Sweden to study the Prepping Together movement, which he says can be a model for how we chose to respond.Interview | May | 2023
On February 23, a train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, causing an environmental disaster of historic proportions. It was a Norfolk Southern train, which was over a mile long and carrying hazardous materials, including over 100,000 gallons of vinyl chloride. Three days later, a so called control to burn through toxic materials from the crash into the atmosphere that continues to affect communities for miles around. Since the derailment, many in East Palestine and neighboring communities have been struggling with challenges resulting from the chemical contamination as well as a lack of transparency from federal and state agencies. On this episode of Breaking green, we will talk with Amanda Kiger, the director of River Valley Organizing a citizens based community organization that works for a safer, cleaner and more community oriented environment in the Appalachian river valley, a region long challenged by environmental degradation. Amanda Kiger, has been featured prominently in the media, as she her organization and members of the East Palestine community seek a meaningful response from state and federal agencies that seem more concerned with the financial well being of Northfolk Southern man the residents.
Feature | February | 2023
It is 90 seconds to midnight on the Doomsday Clock. In large part due to developments in the war in Ukraine, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the infamous timepiece forward.
Just weeks earlier the Department of Energy announced the first reported controlled fusion reaction that was touted as a breakthrough for national defense and the future of clean energy.
Given the history of that lab, there is reason for skepticism.
In this episode of Breaking Green we will talk with Dr. Helen Caldicott.
Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1938, Dr Caldicott received her medical degree from the University of Adelaide Medical School in 1961. She founded the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital in 1975 and subsequently was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and on the staff of the Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Mass., until 1980 when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of nuclear war.
In 1971, Dr Caldicott played a major role in Australia’s opposition to French atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific; in 1975 she worked with the Australian trade unions to educate their members about the medical dangers of the nuclear fuel cycle, with particular reference to uranium mining.
While living in the United States from 1977 to 1986, she played a major role in re-invigorating as President, Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. On trips abroad she helped start similar medical organizations in many other countries. The international umbrella group (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.
Dr Caldicott has received many prizes and awards for her work, including the Lannan Foundation’s 2003 Prize for Cultural Freedom and twenty one honorary doctoral degrees. She was personally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling–himself a Nobel Laureate. The Smithsonian has named Dr Caldicott as one of the most influential women of the 20th Century.
Don't miss an episode and subscribe to Breaking Green wherever you get your podcasts.
This podcast is produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.Interview | February | 2023
Dr. Helen Caldicott is concerned that we are the closest we have ever been to nuclear annihilation and that citizens are no longer informed as to the incomprehensible destruction and suffering that it would bring.
Feature
An excerpt from a January 25th, 2023 interview on Breaking Green with host Steve Taylor. Video of U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer.
Breakinggreen.buzzsprout.com
Interview | October | 2022
As oil dependent nations seek to shore up their supply while the war between Russia and Ukraine rages, some African Nations seem eager to provide more access to fossil fuels. This was evidenced during the September minister’s meeting in Egypt, when representatives from various African nations called on world leaders to “avoid approaches that encourage abrupt disinvestments from fossil fuels.”
But many in Africa have been fighting for justice in the face of abuses by companies that damage the environment and make the continent second only to Russia when it comes to the hazardous practice of gas flaring.
In this episode of Breaking Green we talk with renowned Nigerian architect , author and activist Nnimmo Bassey, about what it really means for the health of Africans and the planet when it comes to the exploitation of the so-called resource rich continent. We will also discuss the history of colonialism’s impact on Africa and how the 27th Conference of Parties, to be held this November in Egypt, is likely to promote false solutions to climate change and refuse to deal in a meaningful way with the climate debt owed to the global south in general, and Africa in particular.
Nnimmo Bassey is a Nigerian architect, environmental activist, author and poet, who chaired Friends of the Earth International from 2008 through 2012 and was executive director of Environmental Rights Action for two decades. His is director of the ecological think-tank, Health of Mother Earth as well as a board member of Global Justice Ecology Project. Nnimmo Bassey was a co-recipient of the 2010 Right Livelihood Award also known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” In 2012 he received the Rafto Human Rights Award. He was also one of Time magazine’s Heroes of the Environment in 2009.
Don’t miss this episode and subscribe to Breaking Green wherever you get your podcasts.
This podcast is produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.Interview | September | 2023
New Zealand is a "GE Free zone" meaning that all produce grown in New Zealand can be guaranteed free of genetic engineering (GE) and GMO traits.
Companies are allowed to do research with genetically modified organisms but according to current New Zealand law such organisms must be proven safe before they are allowed for use for farming.
Yet as New Zealand heads into its 2023 election, several national political parties are threatening New Zealand's GE free status by suggesting the revocation of its precautionary legislation.
In this episode of Breaking Green we will talk with Claire Bleakley, president of GE Free New Zealand about this push for the dropping of this long cherished GE free status and what and who is behind it.
Claire Bleakley is the president of GE Free New Zealand. GE Free NZ has been active in raising awareness around the dangers of genetic engineering and gene editing over the last 20 years.
Claire and her husband live on a small organic farm in New Zealand. She became actively involved in the GE Free movement when genetically engineered animals and crops, designed to withstand a cocktail of herbicides and insecticidal toxins, were developed.
Claire and GE Free NZ have successfully challenged in court the safety of GE animals and crops.
Don't miss an episode and subscribe to Breaking Green wherever you get your podcasts.
This podcast is produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.
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