Art Cullen is editor and co-owner with his older brother John of The Storm Lake Times, a 3,000-circulation twice-weekly newspaper in his hometown of Storm Lake, Iowa. In 2017 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a series of editorials about agriculture and water pollution in Iowa.

Now he has a new book out. Dear Marty, We Crapped Our Nest, Notes from the Edge of the World is a collection of essays chronicling Iowa’s transformation from bucolic paradise where neighbors helped each other through the hard times, to a bitterly divided state drenched in agrichemicals and manure. Cullen wrote the book to have an impact on the 2026 midterms elections in Iowa.

“Iowa is at a real inflection point. It’s been a one-party state for years, red. It feels like this midterm elections could show a reversal especially in the governor’s race. I think it’s important to focus on what the real issues are. And there is no issue more important to Iowa then climate change,” Cullen said.

Climate change and how it intertwines with Iowa’s largest industry – agriculture – are a major theme in We Crapped Our Nest. A major hurdle to bringing the agriculture sector into the climate fight has been reluctance by many farmers to even acknowledge the problem is human-induced.

“Farmer sentiment is driven by what we call in Iowa cropaganda. They want you to believe what they want you to believe and then you start to believe it,” Cullen says. He thinks farmers were following false narratives told by Koch industries and the oil industry that climate change is an overblown hoax. He used a recent experience with fall fertilizer application as an example.

“We’ve known fall fertilizer application for row crops is a bad idea for at least twenty years. On a recent drive from Storm Lake Iowa to Rochester Minnesota there was a dam army of anhydrous ammonia tanks spreading fall fertilizer. We all know 30% of it gets lost to the environment. Here’s the famers saying ‘we’re not making it’ watching their net income decline yet they’re more than willing to waste 30% of their nutrient cost by doing fall fertilizer. That tells you just how powerful the propaganda is telling farmers that you have it do it this way. When in fact you really don’t.”

“But if you’re one guy controlling as many acres as a Pharoh, then you do have to do fall fertilizer to get all that work done for the spring. You tell yourself the pollution is OK, and I’m wasting this money because I’m too big.”

Chris Jones is a former research engineer and Associate Professor at the University of Iowa. He’s now president of the Driftless Water Defenders after authoring a scathing indictment of factory farming in his state. He’s also exploring a run for Iowa Agriculture Secretary against incumbent Jeff Naig. Does Cullen think he has a shot?

“His name is reviled in production agriculture for writing that Iowa is bathed in hog shit – which it is. But just getting people to reassess their position on water quality is a victory for Chris Jones. The farm bureau will try and destroy him. But the conversation is changing in Iowa because we are the only state with a rising incidence of cancer. Chris is doing us a favor even if he loses. He’s going to force people to think about how we’re crapping in our nest. He’s indelicate about water pollution and that’s going to make people uncomfortable and that’s what we need. For people to be uncomfortable.”

In We Crapped Our Nest, Cullen does a fair amount of writing about the woes that chemical dependent industrialized agriculture has wrought on the landscape and the people of Iowa. Chronic insults that are not going unnoticed. “Where I live in Western Iowa, we have the highest breast cancer and prostate cancer rates in North America. We also have the densest concentration of livestock in North America. Hogs, dairy, eggs and turkeys. There’s a lot of anxiety in Iowa between the connections of water pollution and cancer. Specifically, agriculture and cancer, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides.”

So why not regulate agriculture in the state?

“Government capture by conservatives has been going on for the past 50 years in Iowa. They bought the entire judicial system. And the Iowa supreme court has now said you cannot regulate agriculture. We have a one-party system and the Farm Bureau is calling the shots on everything in Iowa in consultation with Koch Enterprises.”

In his book, Cullen also writes about farmworkers and meat plant workers being deported and what the detrimental effect it has on the fabric of rural communities. He also talks about how Iowa farmers are enduring a second trade war that has deeply impacted the ag economy. With a stalled farm bill, why does Cullen think farmers keep voting for Trump?

“In his first term the trade war really set export sales back permanently and they really had a generous bailout of $100 billion from a multiplicity of sources. Farmers called them Trump Bumps. They think Trump will still take care of them, again.

But you also don’t see the Trump flags flying in Iowa like you used to.”

Just finished my last audiobook recording session for The Midnight Rambler. I cannot express how taxing it was. You can’t just waltz in and blab away. Release date TBD but wanted to express a huge thanks to my old friend Kelly Gary who set it up and to Minneapolis music legend Kent Militzer for doing the sessions.

FYI one of many of Kent’s bands is the notorious Electric Light Orchestra cover group ELnO. Go seem them!

A year ago yesterday, Koehler Books published my first novel, The Midnight Rambler. And Boy Howdy has it been a year. We had amazing launch events, I did podcasts, and more podcasts, radio shows, a chilly January reading at Comma Bookstore here in Minneapolis, an Earth Day reading at one of my favorite breweries, an Earth Day SDPB interview, and went on an amazing show called Brainstorming the Human Condition.

We did a summer tour of Minnesota independent books stores starting with Fitger’s in Duluth, Beagle and Wolf in Park Rapids, and Cherry Street in Alexandria. Those were made much easier to book because the great champion of independent Minnesota bookstores — William Kent Krueger — delivered such a glowing blurb for the Midnight Rambler. I’ll forever be grateful for that, and to the publicity team at Blue Cottage.

And readers and reviewers liked it! At Goodreads we’re sitting at a comfortable 4.39 rating.

“This is a nonstop immersive ride…Fast-paced and heart-pounding, this is a deadly game of cat and mouse that will keep your attention from the very first sentence.” –Teresa Brock, Best Thriller Books

“A thriller that is packed with memorable characters, fast-paced action, and thought-provoking social, political, and special interests will find The Midnight Rambler thoroughly engrossing.” – Midwest Book Review

“Every so often, you come across a book by a new author that leaves you utterly speechless. Midnight Rambler is one such book-a pulse-pounding thriller that grips you from start to finish.” – Steve Thomas, Best Thriller Books

The finale to all of this was attending and presenting at the three-day South Dakota Festival of Books. Hosted in my home state, it was to quote a great writer, a “non-stop immersive ride.” I participated in an onstage discussion with the talented and funny Taylor Brorby focused on writing about the environment, both in fiction and non-fiction. The next day I was on a panel with three experts talking about water quality that was broadcast across the state.

And we sold out of copies!

A heartfelt thanks for everyone who bought or read The Midnight Rambler this past year and to all my friends and family for the support.

With all that I went on pause for a couple of months to rest up and start on the book’s sequel, once again following EPA Special Agent Sophie Grant, tentatively titled Live Green or Die Hard. But starting in the 2025 I’ll be blogging much more with a focus on environmental crimes and keeping everyone up to date on the next book and much more.

Speaking of which, this story from the Washington Post on the ominous Primeiro Comando da Capital or First Capital Command, a powerful South American criminal organization that pumps “drugs across the continent and across the ocean to Europe and Africa,” is a must read for environmental crime aficionados. Or even those looking for future book ideas…

“The PCC is now moving into the most remote corners of the Amazon forest, where it’s expanding into environmental crime. The region, which scientists agree must be preserved to avert catastrophic global warming, has already been pushed to the brink by illegal deforestation. But the emergence of the PCC and its diversification into illegal mining and logging has deepened the biome’s peril, introducing an unpredictable new level of criminality to the Amazon.”

Some stray thought pollution:

Made the move from Twitter to Bluesky. Bluesky is where I now post regularly but you can still find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

I’ve been going through old clips and came across this one I wrote for my college paper in ‘93. Really want to channel this writing vibe going into 2025 and LIVE GREEN OR DIE HARD.

Published in Sierra Magazine.

Looking back, it seems the problem started with Ghostbusters.

In the 1984 blockbuster comedy, William Atherton plays Environmental Protection Agency investigator Walter Peck. Alarmed by media reports about the Ghostbusters' shenanigans, Peck stops by their headquarters, looking for "the presence of noxious, possibly hazardous-waste chemicals." Ghostbuster Peter Venkman, played by Bill Murray, lies about the existence of an unlicensed fission reactor they're using to imprison captured ghouls—which prompts the EPA official to return with police officers and shut down the rogue nuclear device. Mayhem ensues as the undead take over Manhattan. Peck is emasculated by Venkman in front of the mayor and ultimately buried under a mountain of ectoplasm. The audience merrily cheers at the comeuppance of the unctuous, self-righteous environmental bureaucrat.

In the decades since, film and television depictions of environmentalists haven't evolved much. Environmentalists in pop culture are consistently portrayed as scolds, hypocrites, or Malthusian villains—or all three at once.

Entertainment may be escapist, but it also informs real life. By reinforcing tired stereotypes about greens as hysterical Cassandras, film and television writers are making it harder to grow the movements for ecological sustainability and environmental justice.

Maybe this is no big deal. Entertainment is escape, after all. And part of what makes enviros such juicy targets for writers is that we often take ourselves too seriously; complaining about being depicted as killjoys only reinforces the stereotype. But the environmentalist toxic tropes are genuinely troublesome. Entertainment may be escapist, but it also informs real life. By reinforcing tired stereotypes about greens as hysterical Cassandras, film and television writers are making it harder to grow the movements for ecological sustainability and environmental justice. Few people are going to want to join an effort full of uptight, smarmy doomsayers.

Watch enough film and TV closely and you'll begin to see how the lazy caricatures of environmentalists pop up again and again like the mass-produced, disposable rom-coms crowding the Netflix carousel.

Take 30 Rock's second-season episode "Greenzo." The segment was written as a meta reaction to NBC's "Green Week," during which many prime-time shows were forced to include a positive environmental message. In the fictional 30 Rock universe, David Schwimmer's Greenzo is "America's first nonjudgmental, business-friendly environmental advocate." He appears across a suite of NBC programming, preaching a planet-friendly message. Of course, being judgmental and pious about the environment is the open-pit mine from which comedy gold is extracted. Greenzo, drunk with power, eventually chastises another character, "Do you even bother to compost your own feces?"

Then there is Dwight Schrute's character "Recyclops" in The Office. He starts off by dishing out helpful Earth Day tips, but over six seasons, Recyclops morphs into a demented, aerosol-spraying death robot. On Modern Family, Jesse Eisenberg appears as a smug, über-green neighbor who keeps contracting salmonella; turns out he was undercooking chicken in his solar oven.

It keeps going. One of the biggest recent hits on TV is Paramount's drama series Yellowstone. The hero, John Dutton, played by Kevin Costner, wants to protect his ranch from coastal developers and government bureaucrats. As the state's former livestock commissioner, Dutton also jousts with vegan activists who, during a protest at his office, douse themselves with red paint. The vegans' Portland, Oregon–reared leader, Summer Higgins, exists as a one-note generator of conflict. At one point, she becomes a literal punching bag as she gets into a fistfight with Dutton's daughter. Speaking of hippie punching: It makes for an entire scene in the 1998 film Armageddon, as a heroic oil driller happily hits golf balls at cowering Greenpeace activists.

Making an eco-scold into the butt of the joke may seem harmless. But sometimes lazy character development stretches into darker corners of the imagination. Cue the fictional eco-terrorist. The notion of radical treehuggers looking to extract violent revenge for crimes against the planet bleeds into entertainment. Political- and espionage-themed shows like The Blacklist and Madam Secretary have featured eco-terrorist plot­lines. In The West Wing's second-season episode "The Drop In," President Bartlet attacks moderate enviros for not condemning eco-terrorists, all in a calculated effort to appease his Republican antagonists.

On the big screen, eco-villains scheme to steal Bolivia's water from peasants in James Bond's Quantum of Solace, and they unleash a horde of kaijus in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. In the time-bending dystopia 12 Monkeys, a misanthropic band of animal-rights activists are the prime suspects in the unleashing of a civilization-destroying pandemic. (Spoiler alert: They didn't do it, but their role as a convenient foil only helps to prove the point.) Amid these unsympathetic characters, the eco-terrorist Oscar goes to Marvel's Thanos. After acquiring godlike powers in Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos annihilates half the universe with the snap of his fingers to preserve enough food and resources for the other half.

Using characters like the environmental scold and the eco-terrorist—along with the dastardly oil executive and the villainous chemical plant owner—may be convenient for movie and TV creators. But in the era of intensifying climate chaos and burgeoning environmental activism, such stereotypes are increasingly anachronistic. Hollywood's green tropes are at risk of being inauthentic—and inauthentic storytelling doesn't sell movie tickets or streaming subscriptions.

The majority of Americans—and a supermajority of young Americans—are concerned about climate change. Research from the script consultants at Good Energy Stories has found that contemporary audiences care more about climate change than the characters they see onscreen do. That disconnect between where the audience is in terms of environmental commitment and what kind of programming they're being offered could prove trouble­some for show business. "At some point, that becomes a problem," said Good Energy founder Anna Jane Joyner. "It's not just about doing something right; it also makes the story you're telling authentic to the world we live in."

Scott Z. Burns, the creator of Apple TV's climate­-change-driven series Extrapolations, agrees. "When you do a show, you need to build a character that's a fully realized human being," he said. "If not, you end up with a shorthand that's the young, crazy vegan radical or the old hippie that never grew up. Both of those stereotypes are not great writing. They're also not fair to how integrated environmentalism has become in our day-to-day lives. There are people who are conscious of their impact in pretty much every line of work. Even bankers."

The increasing urgency of the climate crisis appears to be leading to a shift—though a slow one—in how environmentalists are portrayed on-screen. On Apple TV's critically acclaimed Ted Lasso, the lovable character Sam Obisanya leads a protest against the team's sponsor, which is polluting his Nigerian homeland. Even the eco-saboteur has gotten a Hollywood makeover. The 2018 Icelandic film Woman at War is a warm portrait of a passionate, determined heroine who sabotages the construction of a nearby aluminum plant; she is also the local choir director. And How to Blow Up a Pipeline, an indie flick released earlier this year, took an Edward Abbey–like plotline and turned it into an Ocean's Eleven–style heist movie. The ragtag protagonists bring to mind the scrappy rebels from Star Wars, with the oil and gas industry as the Empire.

Vulture TV critic Jen Chaney believes that the 2021 climate apocalypse satire Don't Look Up will be viewed as a turning point in how environmentalists are portrayed. Director Adam McKay starts with the trope of the environmentalist scolds—a mismatched pair of astronomers played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence—but then makes them empathetic. DiCaprio's astronomer is endearingly anxious; Lawrence's character is at once idealistic and world-weary. "That's an unusual approach," Chaney said.

Ideally, film and TV writers won't just overcorrect and replace the green antihero with the green hero. One-note characters, whether Bond villain or superhero, are boring. Audiences don't need unblemished environmental saviors. They need, rather, environmentally minded characters who are flawed and relatable, no matter their stance on the viability of plastic recycling. That is, characters who are at once forgiving and sanctimonious, scared and courageous, bold and humble, fueled by passion and riven by doubt.

Hopefully, Hollywood will realize sooner rather than later that environmentalists are just like everyone else—both admirable and screwed up in all the usual ways. When that realization hits, environmentalists will finally go from recycled cliché to center stage, the sort of protagonists who can even defeat the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Contributed to this piece in the Star Tribune.

A half-dozen cool things in music, from two points of view:

Don Carr of Minneapolis:

1 Trip Shakespeare documentary. According to former lead singer Matt Wilson’s email list, there’s a Trip Shakespeare documentary in the works with a Chicago filmmaker. I can’t think of a better band to chronicle than the quartet whose tightly crafted songs melded soaring vocal harmonies with baroque-local lyrics. Trip’s blazing live shows knowingly walked the line between guitar god rock and a soft brick of Velveeta. I cannot look at the moon, put on pants, stand in the falling snow or drive through Brainerd without humming one of their indelible tunes.

2 Lucky Cat Records. The sign went up over the legendary Oar Folkjokeopus/Treehouse Records building on 26th Street and Lyndale Avenue in south Minneapolis and will open later this month. Building owner Mark Trehus said of Lucky Cat’s majordomo Michele Swanson, “I’m excited that she wants to carry on the legacy of the building’s importance in the history of Minneapolis record shops and its interrelationship with the music scene.”

3 Waco Brothers. Those professional manure disturbers from Chicago will be playing songs from their 2023 album, “The Men That God Forgot,” under a new lighting rig at the Cedar Cultural Center on July 6. The fresh songs are borderline militant, like the best of the Clash but filtered through the Waco’s unique brand of insurgent country.

Jon Bream, Star Tribune critic:

1 Los Lobos, the ROC. Regular visitors to the Twin Cities over the past 50 years, singer/guitarist Cesar Rosas wondered where in the heck they were playing. Singer/guitarist David Hidalgo knew enough to dedicate the show to the late promoter Sue McLean, whose current staff was resourceful enough to discover a new outdoor venue. St. Louis Park’s Recreation Outdoor Center (ROC) is a space for a hockey rink with a canopy. It didn’t have the best acoustics for Latin-flavored Americana, but Los Lobos couldn’t be denied. They were wonderful again, peaking with “Don’t Worry Baby” and the Grateful Dead’s “Bertha.”

2 Jamecia Bennett and J Movement, the Dakota. In the fourth annual invite-only Celebration of Black Music organized by marketer Sharon Smith-Akinsanya, the Sounds of Blackness diva tore it up. Except for the Sounds’ testifying “I Believe,” it was a set of R&B covers of Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston and a Minneapolis Sound medley. Bennett was on fire when she visited the Chaka Khan catalog with “Tell Me Something Good” and “Ain’t Nobody.”

3 “Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon” by Joel Selvin. The San Francisco music critic offers the harrowing and deeply reported story of the Los Angeles drumming phenom who played on “Good Vibrations,” “Classical Gas” and “You’re So Vain” as well as with Joe Cocker and Derek & the Dominoes. But Gordon suffered from mental illness, knocking out then-girlfriend Rita Coolidge with a punch, being so unreliable he ended up gigging in a bar band for $30 a night and eventually bludgeoning his mother to death with a hammer in 1983 because her voice in his head told him to do it. He died in prison in 2023.

Often mocked as a "water cop," Environmental Protection Agency special agent Sophie Grant has faced countless dangerous situations while chasing criminal polluters, from boarding tankers at sea to Somali refugee camps. But when she is assigned to Italy's tourist-filled Amalfi Coast in pursuit of a toxic-waste-dumping cartel, the fearless female EPA agent finds herself in the crosshairs of legendary Camorra assassin Il Mezzanotte Ramingo-the Midnight Rambler-and is forced to do the most harrowing thing of all: ask her disgraced ex-cop father for help.

But like the deadly polluted water flowing below the sun-splashed Amalfi bedrock, nothing is as it appears. As this action-packed eco-thriller unfolds, it is revealed that the CIA aims to use her as bait. But Il Ramingo hasn't killed seemingly impossible-to-reach politicians, judges, and Camorra rivals for years without learning to sniff out a trap.

Published December 19th, 2023 by Koehler Books.

But it here.

Reader reactions and reviews at Goodreads.

"Set in Italy and full of lush location details, The Midnight Rambler is an utterly masterful interweave of compelling characters, relentless action, and swift, unpredictable plot twists. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel from the first page to the last. Mark my words, Don Carr has everything it takes to become our next Robert Ludlum."-William Kent Krueger, New York Times Best-Selling and Award-Winning Author of This Tender Land, Ordinary Grace, and the Cork O'Connor Mystery Series

"This is a nonstop immersive ride...Fast-paced and heart-pounding, this is a deadly game of cat and mouse that will keep your attention from the very first sentence." -Teresa Brock, Best Thriller Books

“Every so often, you come across a book by a new author that leaves you utterly speechless. Midnight Gambler is one such book – a pulse-pounding thriller that grips you from start to finish. Trust me, you won’t want to miss this one.” Steve Thomas, Best Thriller Books

"Contrasts between Italian backdrops and culture and American perceptions and landscapes create realistic and thought-provoking scenarios as each of the characters finds themselves drawn into a deadly game where political interests and people are used as bait. These spice a powerful story of environmental polluters and their dangerous interests. Libraries and readers seeking a thriller that is packed with memorable characters, fast-paced action, and thought-provoking social, political, and special interests will find The Midnight Rambler thoroughly engrossing." Midwest Book Review

Crackerjack plotting, amazing characters, a truly original environmental theme, and a relentless pace. It's Erin Brockovich crashing into Jason Bourne." Bob Mayer, Best-Selling Author of over Eighty Books, Including The Green Berets, Area 51, and Atlantis

". . . a fast-paced, page-turner that will leave you breathless and wanting more." Heather White, Best-Selling Author of One Green Thing, Environmental Activist

"If you like a good, crazy-terrifying eco-thriller, grab Don Carr's first novel, The Midnight Rambler."Elaine Shannon, Best-Selling Author of Hunting LeRoux, Desperados, The Spy Next Door, and No Heroes: Inside the FBI's Secret Counter-Terror Force

"As a former special agent with EPA's Criminal Investigation Division, it was great to dive into The Midnight Rambler and be entertained by the adventures of Agent Grant. Well done, Don Carr!" Doug Parker, Former Director of Criminal Investigations, Environmental Protection Agency

This is the last post for Black Rhino Media on Substack.

On November 1^st I’ll be starting a full-time gig as The Alliance for the Great Lakes’ new Media Director. I couldn’t be more excited to be part of a team working to protect 84% of North America’s surface freshwater and 21% of the world’s supply of fresh water!

A big thanks to all my consulting clients over the past couple of years like the National Black Farmers Association, Honor the Earth, Earth Justice, and Freshwater.

In related news, my eco-thriller The Midnight Rambler, is set to be published on December 19^th by Koehler Books. You can read more about it here, and pre-order at my author site here – www.doncarrauthor.com. There’s blogs, podcasts, and videos focused on the novel’s theme of environmental crime at the site. If you’re a Black Rhino Media subscriber, your email address will be ported over to my author newsletter. If you have no interest in author news, book events, and interviews with other writers, you can easily unsubscribe there.

Thank you for your time.

Don

Dr. Chris Jones recently retired from the University of Iowa as a research engineer. A trained chemist, his tenure included penning an incisive blog series that took aim at water quality issues in Iowa. Because his writing was honest, accurate, and well-informed, it rubbed some powerful people the wrong way. You can read more about the reaction to his blog and the events that led to his retirement here on Robert Leonard’s excellent Substack.

After leaving the U of I, Jones collected his essays, blogs, and new writing into a book. The Swine Republic: Struggles with the Truth about Agriculture and Water Quality was released in June by Ice Cube Press.

Don Carr: What’s been the reaction to the book?

Chris Jones: I’m astonished at the reaction. I had some concerns doing a book where half had already been published on my blog. Will people buy this? But the reaction has been great. I could not be more happy about how the book has been received. The room is always packed for readings and signings. There was such a thirst for someone to assemble this information.

I have people come up to me all the time and say you wrote what I’ve been thinking. And that’s what books do. They articulate what people are thinking.

DC: Are these readers getting angered or activated by what you’ve written?

CJ: There is some fatigue out there with the issue, the city of Des Moines lawsuit was in the news for a while. More worrisome to me is that younger generations in Iowa that have grown up with this think this is just the way it is. When people look at lakes and streams that are in a degraded condition, they think it’s a natural condition. There’s not a good grasp of the concept of what these lakes and streams could and should look like. So, a lot of the anger is from older generations that remember things from the childhood and see that things have gotten so much worse.

DC: How have defenders of the status quo of polluted Iowa water reacted to the Swine Republic?

CJ: As we saw in the events surrounding my retirement, when you try to do something to discredit the truth, things can go sideways in a hurry. So, there’s starting to be a recognition they shouldn’t be talking about it.

DC: Talk about the issue with farmland renters in solving Iowa’s water quality problems.

CJ: It’s a huge issue for water quality and conservation since half our land is rented. Is it reasonable for operator to pay for conservation on land they rent to farm? Much of what we do for water quality, like terraces, can increase the value of the land. But that capital improvement doesn’t go to operator. It goes to the landowner.

Just an idea, but if we started regulating pollution on rented land, it wouldn’t make economic sense for someone to hold onto that land and cash rent checks from a nursing home. It would also have the added benefit of putting that land back into circulation during a time when we’re told by the farm lobby that younger and beginning farmers don’t have access to land.

But we’re going in the opposite direction because the Iowa legislature just passed a law to make renters’ income taxes exempt. We need creative ideas and that’s not one of them.”

DC: Why not repeal the non-point source exemption in the Clean Water Act?

CJ: Des Moines Water Works essentially tried to get that done. Look a pipe is a pipe and waters coming out, most people can call that a point source. No when you have thousands and millions of pipes how do you look at regulating that?  So, from the start lets at least start calling it point source so we can start regulating and enforcing it and I’m certainly for that.

DC: How vulnerable is the ethanol industry to the EV revolution? And if that sector craters, is there an opportunity to put some of the land devoted to ethanol production on some type of conservation easement?

CJ: We need to be talking about this. Ethanol’s dying. We all know this. The question is will it be 5 years or 20 years or even 30 years -- which is what the ethanol industry is saying. But 30 years really isn’t that far off. 60 percent of our corn going to ethanol – one fifth of Iowa farmland is used to grow corn for ethanol. We need to be talking now about what to do next. Whether it’s a conservation easement or alternative crops like oats, its derelict for our state’s leaders not to be talking about this.

It also doesn’t mean farmers will be out of business. There’s solar intermingling with alternative crops and livestock. There’s lots we can do with this land. But it’s going to take smart policy. Ethanol didn’t happen on its own. We created this behemoth of an ethanol industry with federal policy and that’s what it’s going to take to solve the problem.

DC: What about carbon farming?

CJ: Carbon is really susceptible to loss and subject to the whims of an individual farmers. It makes more sense to plant oak trees.

DC: There was a notion a decade ago if you just got the Certified Crop Advisors to talk to producers about sustainability that they would change their behavior. Or if you had other farmers put pressure on them, they would change their behavior. Why haven’t those ideas worked out?

CJ: CCAs work on commission, and we have about a 1,000 ag retailers in Iowa. There’s no CCA or ag retailers that want to sell less stuff. I’ve heard this idea for 25 years and I just think it’s a fantasy. Convincing Iowa’s 80,000 farmers to do the right thing one at time does not fill me with confidence.

I don’t know why it’s so taboo, but we need laws. I don’t understand the farmers that are doing it the right way, why they are against regulation. Certainly, it costs them in if not in dollars but in time to do the right thing. Why would you want to do all that work, while at the same time the guy down the road is getting away with murder? It doesn’t make sense.”

DC: To that end, what your thoughts on the growing scientific links between agriculture pollution and human health?

CJ We’ve known for a long time that we’re doing here is having human health effects. For example, we know anti-biotic staph infections come from hog farms. It’s in scientific literature. Or that kids that grow up by CAFOs have higher asthma rates. And now we have cancer clusters in Minnesota and Nebraska.

DC: I like bacon and junk food as much as the next person. If we stopped eating things like Casey’s bacon cheeseburger pizza, wouldn’t they stop producing so much?

CJ: Can we affect change with our personal choices? It can’t hurt. With ethanol likely no. With meat? Maybe. If you look at consumption over the long haul, beef and pork have declined while chicken has shot up. The smaller the animal we eat the better the environmental outcomes. We’ve also “convivenced” meat. We’ve made it really easy to eat. When I was growing up you didn’t walk into a gas station and get a slice of sausage pizza. Items like chicken nuggets and tenders…we’ve made it so easy to eat meat. I remember my folks cutting up chickens on the kitchen counter. Who does that now?”

Now I’m not one to judge people on their food choices. And if we made the livestock industry responsible for their pollution, that would be priced in and it wouldn’t be so cheap to eat. But before we single out beef, by the way, I’d much rather see 50 head of cattle grazing on pasture then that land used to grow corn for ethanol.

DC: Final question. Do you have any favorite environmental writers?

CJ: One of the best environmental writers around right now is Elizabeth Kolbert. I like her books. We all talk about Aldo. And the stuff he wrote beyond A Sand County Almanac was pretty angry.

To that end, I put together some clips to visually demonstrate my point. Enjoy.

My new novel, the eco-thriller The Midnight Rambler comes out December 12th from Koehler Books. Follow this link to vote on one of the two cover designs above (not gonna reveal my pick for now).

Thanks!

P.S. Read more about The Midnight Rambler here.

Heather White spent the better part of two decades helming environmental groups in Washington DC and Montana. Last year she wrote One Green Thing: Discover Your Hidden Power to Help Save the Planet. Heather also is the founder & CEO of OneGreenThing, a nonprofit that “tackles eco-anxiety through joyful daily action, leading to culture change for policy solutions.”

Below we talk about environmental heroes portrayed onscreen and the anger younger generations have with inaction on climate change.

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Don Carr: I appreciate the GEN X vibes you open the book with, talk to me about our generation and how we view the environment and climate change.

Heather White: We were the first ones that became aware of those issues as children. I remember when Earth in the Balance came out in 1992 (by former Vice-president Al Gore). I was in college and that was a seminal book in terms of emissions and the impact we have. We are also a generation that remembers fax machines but didn’t have cell phones until well into our 20’s.

We didn’t grow up in the digital age. So many of us that grew up in rural areas and just drove around spending time outdoors hanging out with friends at parks or lakes. We had a lot more downtime in nature and there was no such thing as helicopter parenting. We were free to roam and have a lot more experiences in nature. We also had this information about the planet that our parents didn’t have. Information about how truly vulnerable we are.

DC: Speaking of generations — I talked with the people behind the new movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline, a film borne out of anger at a lack of progress on climate change. Considering the recent trend in activism of throwing soup on famous paintings, it’s clear to me that younger generations are fed up and rightly pissed off about a lack of environmental improvement. Do you agree?

HW: That’s why I wrote the book. I had a dinner table conversation with my daughter about her going to a climate rally. Her generation is sick and tired of all the praise. They’re asking where is GEN X? Where are the boomers? They’re saying we can’t do this on our own.

It shouldn’t all be doom and gloom. The EPA happened. There was a time when there was no EPA. The Clean Air and Water Acts didn’t exist at one time. It’s on our shoulders to share with young people about the changes we’ve seen. The most important thing you can do is ask the young people you love what they feel about the future they’re inheriting from us. To a person when adults have that conversation and really listen, it’s a game changer. Also, the IRA (The Inflation Reduction Act) is the biggest climate investment that has ever happened. You can’t say that’s not progress.

DC: Pro soup or anti soup?

HW: I’m all about visibility and getting people to think differently. But the problem is that not everyone is part of the environmental community or thinks about the issues the way we do. Sometimes people are afraid to call themselves an environmentalist or are wary about joining in climate action. We need members of an older generation that have political power as allies. When they see someone throw soup on sunflowers – and it gets good press – it doesn’t encourage someone with influence to call their members of congress for climate change action.

That’s another reason why I wrote the book. The people who want to get involved and are as worried as younger generations don’t know where to start. Young people are saying do something seismic, something huge, and not everyone can. It’s progress not perfection. I understand the anger. But one of the things we forget to do because as enviros we’ve taken a lot of losses, is to talk about what is possible. Talk about the positive future we can build. Extrapolations showed what happens if we don’t act. We can do more to help people visualize what the future could look like if we get it right.

A lot of us are Wonks or Beacons (green character sketches of personality types in White’s book, which she calls “Service Superpower Profiles”) And a lot of the time we blab on about microgrids and mushroom leather and we lose people. We need to ask kids what they want our future to be and what we’re doing in our community to make the future for them.

DC: Speaking of the character profiles in your book, they’re fleshed out much like characters you’d map out playing Dungeons and Dragons. Was that an inspiration?

HW: No, sorry. My kids play D and D but not me. My assessment was more based on Myers-Briggs, StrengthsFinders, and other leadership tools. I thought it was important for people to understand their unique gifts in service to others. As greens we’re always preaching about getting involved but what does that mean? Skip the straw? Walk to work? Ok that’s important, but what does that mean? We talk about systemic market change needed for solutions, but how does that involve the average person? I wanted to help people find a way to get involved that has a real impact but also is viable.

DC: I’ve been writing about how Hollywood tells environmental stories and one of the things experts point to in interviews is how good fossil fuel companies are at storytelling. Greens are far behind. How do we change that?

HW:  Culture change. The reason companies spend so much on storytelling and advertising is to change the way people think. We have to change the culture that perpetuates the ongoing climate crisis. We saw that with Covid. We had strong policies, but strong policy is meaningless if people don’t follow it.

During the 1980’s, the school nurse brought into class an actual human lung removed from a lifelong cigarette smoker and compared it to a healthy lung. That’s effective storytelling! I immediately went to my grandparents and hounded them until they quit smoking. I was empowered to talk to these big figures in my life because I was concerned with their lives.

DC: We both like to talk pop culture and reference music and movies in our work. In the section titled Industrial Pollution: Slow Your Roll, Erin Brockovich you talk about Erin and her huge impact. Who are your favorite environmentalists in film or TV?

HW: Obviously Erin is at the top of the list. It was a seminal film that changed the way people viewed environmental protection and health but also empowerment. The fact that you do have agency. Eco-anxiety makes people feel hopeless like they don’t have agency. And Erin is still giving agency and hope to people today.

I am also a huge fan of Maya Penn who I profile as one of the 21 “eco-heroes” in the book.  She’s an artist and sustainable entrepreneur. She’s a creative mind and we’ve got to have artists and creative people in this movement to have people see what’s possible and connect on a culture space.

My song is “Nothing but Flowers” by Talking Heads. It’s a post-apocalyptic vignette about our indifference & disconnect to nature. We forget to talk about what we CAN create, how we could build regenerative, beautiful cities & spaces. We need to give people a vision, which is where the song starts for me.  

But I also love how the song makes fun of human’s indifference  and how disconnected we are to the environment. The conclusion - “Don’t leave me stranded here/I can’t get used to this lifestyle.” 

How to Blow Up a Pimple premiered back in November 2022 at the Toronto Film Festival and is going into wide release for Earth Day.

Matt Zoller Seitz writing at RogerEbert.com called it “one of the most original American thrillers in years”

Writing at Paste Magazine Jacob Oller said it was “absolutely electric filmmaking” and “It’s as satisfying as any good bank job, only it’s stealing a little bit more time on this planet from the companies looking to scorch the earth.”

I had the pleasure to speak with the team behind the film for an upcoming feature in Sierra Magazine. Director Daniel Goldhaber, editor Daniel Garber, screenwriter Jordon Sjol, and actress and screenwriter Ariela Barer.

We talked about challenges of making independent films, what activism looks like in a world of dwindling options, their favorite on-screen environmental heroes and much more.

Last week I had the opportunity to review Apple TV’s new climate change series Extrapolations for Sierra Magazine. The assignment included talking with show creator Scott Z. Burns. Burns is best known for producing An Inconvenient Truth and writing the scripts for Contagion and The Bourne Identity.

Burns had a lot more to say about climate change and storytelling that didn’t make it into the piece. Like any good environmentalist — from snout to tail — I’m going to use the whole hog. So, on the day of Extrapolation’s fourth episode’s airing, here’s my broader interview with Burns.

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Black Rhino Media: Vulture TV critic Jen Chaney told me she believes that because of the recent Covid 19 pandemic - suddenly there’s this event we’d only experienced in movies and books and now was reality – it allows viewers to conceptualize climate change onscreen without it seeming like an abstract idea. As the guy who brought us Contagion, do you agree?

Scott Z. Burns: Humans have a hard time looking ahead and personalizing a threat. We are not good at what the military calls situational awareness. So, when I was writing Contagion the realization was that we have fire departments that we staff even when your house isn’t on fire. The same goes for government responses to public health emergencies.

Contagion hopefully made science seem like a reliable source for people to get some understanding of what the risks are. But then we also saw human instinct and politics come into it and suddenly there’s misinformation and suspicion and these two things seem to be constantly in a dance in society now. A thing happens, everyone volunteers an explanation or finds someone to blame when we should be focused on solving the problem.

We wanted the show [Extrapolations] to not be too distant. The time difference between right now and when the show allegedly starts is about the same amount of time between now and when we made an Inconvenient Truth. What I wanted to do was make it impossible to push it away and say that’s not a world I recognize. We wanted to make the future something that you couldn’t deny.

BRM: The show is packed with stars like Meryl Streep. Did you have to do any cajoling to get actors onboard?

Burns: Yeah, a lot of them share my feelings and your feelings about this issue and were thrilled to have a piece of material that aligned with it. Or in Mathew’s [Rhys] case or Kitt’s [Harrington] case they made really great villains. I hope that they responded to what was on the page as much as what was in their hearts. Apple made it clear that wanted us to have the bar really high and I was still stunned every time I sent a script out and got on the phone with someone and they really wanted to do this. Working with Tar Rahem was as much fun as I’ve ever had with an actor as a director because that was an important story to tell.

BRM: What was the challenge with making a show about climate change not feel prescriptive or like eating your broccoli?

Burns: A big lesson I learned from Stephen Soderbergh over the years was the audience is not going for a science lecture. They don’t really give you points if the story you told aligns with their politics. What you’re asking them for is an hour of their time and you better give them something entertaining for that hour. That was the obligation. If I’m taking an hour of someone’s time, then my goal should be -- can I make their favorite show? Can I make something that is funny and moving and all the possible things that they could want? We started from a point of we’re making entertainment and the audience will not and should not give us a pass because we are doing something with a social good attached to it. That should be between them and their own personal compass.

BRM: In Extrapolations, we see future afflictions like summer heat, heat rage, and fatal misquote bites -- was it important to show the whole breadth of threats we face to our health beyond fire and flood?

Burns: We had to work as a production team in a very granular way about everything that was put in front of the camera and how its effected by climate change. How do clothes change? How does food change? We were looking at what climate change would do to everything. How does it change your life expectancy?

BRM: In your show, cryptocurrency is killing us with its carbon impact, Beyonce’s daughter Blue Ivy cuts a holiday record, Texas secedes, billionaires shoot rockets into space instead of doing what’s right for the planet -- did you make an effort to sprinkle those references to our current time in the narrative?  

Burns: Absolutely. We are very much a product of what came before. In your daily life your music you’re listening to tends to be from a different time in your life. I wanted to find things from this moment and allowed them to morph as they go into the future. Will there be an opportunity with holograms? These things in terms of world building are very important.

We’ve also made it very easy to relegate that kind of speculative storytelling to the science fiction part of the bookstore. But Jules Verne and Orwell were also doing social commentary. So was Ray Bradbury, Kim Stanley Robinson, William Gibson and Neal Stephenson.

There’s more to those books than just science fiction. It’s more what the future looks like and how it informs the present.

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Extrapolations airs every Friday night on Apple TV+

First published in Sierra Magazine.

The year is 2037. Fires rage across the globe. Activists are protesting government gridlock on climate change as corporate CEOs defend their greed with arguments that a strong economy is worth a couple of more degrees added to the super-heated atmosphere.

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If this sounds more familiar than it does far-fetched, that’s the point. Extrapolations, a new Apple TV scripted series about climate change, begins in a recognizable near future. Then, episode by episode and as the years pass, the dial is turned up until the fallout from climate change dramatically alters every aspect of human life on Earth.

Over the course of eight vignettes, viewers travel through time, starting in 2037 and ending in 2070. Like the best science fiction, Extrapolations’ imaginings of ever-intensifying impacts of our warming atmosphere resonate with the audience because they are both visceral and personal. Explored through various characters’ perspectives, the episodes tackle the full spectrum of climate change’s impacts. This is prestige drama as a dire warning.

In the first three of the anthology’s installments, Israel burns, Miami floods, and the whales vanish. Some narratives are self-contained in a single episode, while other storylines span the entire 33-year arc of the series. Plot lines aren’t just relegated to climate chaos. In Extrapolations’ timeline, Texas secedes, cancer is cured, humans land on Mars, and Beyonce’s daughter, Blue Ivy, releases a holiday album. The speculative cultural references are sprinkled throughout with restraint, so they don’t topple the enterprise into Idiocracy territory. 

While the unfolding climate disasters are mural-scale, Extrapolations packs an intimate punch by focusing on smaller-bore plots. We follow Ezra, first as a boy who contacts a potentially fatal climate-change-induced condition called “summer heart.” Ezra can’t go outside in the heat for too long or get too excited—otherwise, he dies. In a later episode, an adult Ezra (played by Tahar Rahim) struggles to cope with the cascading effects of his disease. 

Each episode is essentially a stand-alone story, but there are connecting threads. Early in the series, Ezra’s story intersects with that of Nick Bilton (played by Game of Thrones’ Kit Harrington), who is a suaver version of our current crop of rocket-launching tech-titans. Bilton serves as the entire series’ big baddie. In the first installment, as millions of people go thirsty, Bilton leverages his patents on water desalination technology to cash in. All the while, he makes statements like, “A man whose house is on fire is incredibly easy to negotiate with.” 

Bilton may be a one-man global antagonist, but Extrapolations’ main villain is human greed. In the series premiere, a predatory real estate developer (played by Mathew Rhys) sees nothing but profit in ice-free Arctic seas. “We’ll be smiling in gold-plated coffins designed by Kanye,” he says to his business partner as they scheme construction of their new polar casino. Similarly, species extinction is viewed as just another business opportunity. We are introduced to a Bilton subsidiary that races to lock up animal kingdom intellectual property rights under the mantra of “scarcity equaling value.”

Show creator and writer Scott Z. Burns, who is best known for producing An Inconvenient Truth and for writing screenplays for hit movies like Contagion and the Bourne Ultimatum, said he wanted the series to focus on how human nature is part of the climate predicament. “We can’t change the way our minds work, but we can change how we make governments work,” Burns told Sierra. “There are solutions to climate change—except the very basic problem of our own greed and our inability to share.”  

Bringing environmental themes into entertainment, let alone devoting a whole series to climate change, can be difficult to pull off without making the endeavor feel preachy. Sequences like an espionage plotline about a high-tech seed heist and an action sequence of militants embarking on a rogue geo-engineering mission allows Extrapolations to deliver whiz-bang, homework-free entertainment.   

“The audience doesn’t give you points if the story you told aligns with their politics,” Burns said. “What you’re asking them for is an hour of their time, and you better give them something entertaining for that hour. That was the obligation.” 

Storytellers know that conflict drives narrative. Because of that, movies and TV shows focusing on climate change often use apocalyptic themes. Viewers may be thrilled by cities freezing in a day or mass extinction events, but ultimately, they are left without hope for solving the climate crisis. Extrapolations avoids plunging audiences into nihilism by balancing disaster movie flourishes with family-drama moments of real human kindness and sacrifice. 

“We had a chance to say we are not at the end yet,” said show producer Dorothy Fortenberry, whose previous credits include The Handmaid’s Tale. “We are in the middle. What does the middle look like? How do we make it through? That was very compelling to me.”

Both Burns and Fortenberry say they have the material and desire for a second season—which should be welcome news to climate activists eager for more pop culture treatments of the crisis. According to a recent report by the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center and Good Energy Stories, only 2.8 percent of the 37,453 scripted TV shows and movies released between 2016 and 2020 mentioned climate change. Does this deter creators and studios from pursuing more environment-centric entertainment? 

“Adam McCay [writer and director of Don’t Look Up] and I have talked about this,” Burns said.  “He said there should be a lot of shows about climate change. We have tons of shows set in hospitals and police departments. We came to understand the Second World War through novels and even cinema in Europe that helped people understand what the hell just happened. We have an obligation to tell those stories about the existential threat we are in now.” 

A recent report created in partnership by the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center and Good Energy Stories contains sobering news. Only 2.8% of the 37,453 scripted TV shows and movies released between 2016 and 2020 mentioned climate change. Contrast that with a Pew poll showing two thirds of Americans demand the federal government do more to combat the climate crisis.

I talked with both groups to better understand what needs to be done to bring more climate stories to the screen.

“For some of us climate change has been an important issue for a long time. When we started working on climate change with shows and writers it took us a good couple of years to get writers heads around the idea,” said Kate Langrall Folb.

Folb is the Director of Hollywood Health and Society, part of the Lear Center. HHS provides the entertainment industry with accurate and up-to-date information for storylines on health, safety and security. 

“It’s not like heart disease,” Folb said. “It’s easy for a writer to tell a story about someone going into the hospital with heart disease.”

“The trick of storytelling is that it has to feel authentic and to do that you need really great storytellers. To be a great storyteller especially in the medium of television and film takes very hard work and immense talent. You can’t skip over that part. So yes, we need more stories, but we need more high-quality stories,” said Anna Jane Joyner.

Joyner is a climate story consultant and founder and director of Good Energy Stories. Good Energy aims to “make it as easy as possible to portray the climate emergency on-screen in entertaining and artful ways, in any storyline, across every genre.

“Hollywood has a reputation for being difficult to break into for good reason. But because we are doing something that people care about, there’s been a lot of positive reception to the report. The old guard in some cases are still suspicious of climate change stories – they think it’s too political or too boring or people don’t care. The truth is we are all learning how to tell these stories,” Joyner said.

She also echoed Folb’s comments about the higher bar for climate change narratives. “It’s not like war or hunger or racism or any number of other social ills that we have countless shows and movies to reference.”

What barriers exist for writers looking to include more global warming narratives in their projects?

“We try very hard to not tell a writer or showrunner how to do their jobs,” Folb said. “Some writers feel hypocritical. Like ‘I’m not that green and it makes me feel preachy to write about it when I’m the worst offender.”

“I was very intentional about telling our team – story is first and very valuable to us. The fear is we are asking people to write propaganda or shoehorn chocolate covered broccoli into their diets. If it feels forced into a story it won’t likely get made and if it does get made audiences won’t respond well,” Joyner said.

“I also think the fossil fuel industry has done a very good job making us feel guilty for our individual climate footprints. They are phenomenal at storytelling they’ve been investing in that for decades,” Joyner said.

Do the divisive politics over climate change and fears by studios of losing eyeballs have an impact?

“I do think so,” Joyner said. “There are some recent examples, Florida’s LGBT laws and Disney conflict. These are businesses that don’t want to alienate their customers, but the vast majority of Americans believe in climate change and are worried about it. A big demographic focus for content creators and distributors are Millennials and Gen Xers and you look at those audiences and break down the numbers it’s pretty easy to dispel the notion that climate change content is going drive viewers away.”

“Also, you run the opposite risk with audiences that do care. Our research shows that audiences believe they care more about climate change than the characters they see onscreen. At some point that becomes a problem. If the world of your story is not the world we live in, that disconnect of a lived experience by the audience is not good for the story. It’s not just about doing something right, it also makes the story you’re telling authentic to the world we live in,” Joyner said.

Despite the low numbers in the report, there is evidence 2023 might be a boon for climate crisis themed screen entertainment. How to Blow Up a Pipeline, a heist-style thriller - premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and was immediately purchased by Neon. In Amazon Prime’s The Rig, one character summarizes the situation as “we keep punching holes in the earth, eventually it’s going to punch back.” The star heavy cast of Apple TV Plus’s Extrapolations aims to tackle climate change as an anthology series. In HBO Max’s The Last of Us, the zombie causing fungi is fueled by our over-heated atmosphere.

And then the news blew in that 90’s disaster classic Twister was being remade. You can’t say Hollywood doesn’t recycle. While “Details as to the new film’s plot are currently under wraps,” it’d be a huge whiff if the new generation of storm chasers weren’t confronted by mega-tornadoes super-charged by climate change.

Good Energy’s Joyner laughs when I asked her about the obvious evolution of the Twister franchise.

“That’s a clear climate related example.”

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Environmental crime is on the rise both in America and worldwide. While the Biden EPA is doing its best to ramp up enforcement after the polluter-friendly Trump years, some states see a need to also bolster local eco-policing.

“You can’t say you have the nation’s best ozone rules for oil and gas unless you’re able to enforce them,” said James Kenny, secretary of New Mexico’s Environment Department. “We’re seeing large-scale noncompliance in many of our regulatory programs.”

So, with the goal of increasing federal, tribal and state cooperation in prosecuting criminal violations of environmental laws, New Mexico has convened a state-level environmental crimes task force and put Bruce Baizel in charge. Baizel spent 18 years holding oil and gas extractors accountable as the Director of Earthwork’s Energy Program. Baizel recently spoke to Black Rhino Media about the task force’s goals and direction.

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Black Rhino Media: What is your role with the task force?

My specific role is as general consul to New Mexico Environment Department. I manage the attorneys in that department and because of that, I have a pretty good feel for what’s happening in the department.

What’s the most common environmental crime committed in New Mexico?

There’s not a good numerical answer to that, but in our first meeting there were some common areas mentioned independently by different agencies. The oil and gas sector came up several times. Another was organized crime. But what was meant by “organized crime” was varied.

And then wildlife. That was an area where illegal activity and criminal activity was fairly common. Specifically, endangered species and the movement of species into and out of New Mexico. Related, was the use of pesticides and herbicides that would impact wildlife if used illegally.

What’s the most damaging in terms of impacting water, air, and natural resources?

In the air sector we have several areas of the state with ozone issues and that impacts a large number of people. Oil and gas being significant source of those emissions. Not as widespread – but significant is the long term impact of legacy waste around Los Alamos and other military bases.  

The Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim made this statement last year:

“Although we may have fewer criminal cases than civil cases, criminal prosecutions are an indispensable and powerful deterrent to illegal behavior. A genuine threat of criminal prosecution can and will change the conduct of individuals and corporations who would not be deterred by the threat of civil enforcement alone.”

What are your thoughts on Mr. Kim’s statement?

I generally agree with it. My experience in compliance prior to coming to the department and trying to get regulations enforced was that if the penalty for non-compliance is a relatively small monetary fine that the company is going to pay, oftentimes that behavior just continues and is considered the cost of doing business.

When you have criminal penalties that may be levied…the fact that you might end up in jail gets people’s attention. And you start getting broader -- particularly corporate concern --- if in fact they were brought into a criminal case. I think it changes and broadens those risks for those committing violations in a way that gets their attention more than just fines.

Do you worry about the politics of regulation?

You always have politics. You’re never going to get 100 percent compliance. It’s whether you get more or less compliance. We’d like to get much more compliance in some of these sectors in New Mexico. The politics are always there. I think at this point given recent events more compliance is in the cards politically, so I think we will be pushing ahead to get more funding to get more inspectors so we can bring about compliance on the civil side. In some instances, refer cases to the agencies that can do criminal prosecution if that is warranted. On a whole, there is widespread support for that.

How important was your time at Earthworks and working on the oil gas accountability project to fronting the task force?

It gave me exposure to a lot of the real-world behavior in a sector that is very impactful.

You mentioned organized environmental crime as a topic of the task force’s first meeting. Internationally, organized environmental crime is on the rise according to INTERPOL. When I talked to the EPA about INTERPOL’s findings they told me it was a small slice of US green crimes – but still happening here. Is there an organized crime element to New Mexico environmental crimes?

I don’t think we have a very good handle on it yet. Where we see it appear is mundane things, like tearing out a building for asbestos with a crew without PPP. If you have a corporate entity making more money because their workers are not properly protected, that’s where we see more organized criminal activity.

Another example is an organized set of chop shops for stolen vehicles and they are dumping parts of vehicles that have hazardous materials.

Final question. What about banned chemicals coming across the Mexican border?

We did discuss that in the task force and that’s an area that needs more participation especially around banned pesticides.

To learn more about EPA’s efforts to fight environmental crime, sign up for the agency’s quarterly crime bulletin here. And keep an eye out for more Flower Power Roundup posts from Black Rhino Media where I go in depth on crimes detailed in the EPA bulletin.

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The fifth season of Paramount’s hit drama Yellowstone, started on Sunday. More popular than ever, it was the most watched scripted premier of 2022.

The first two episode’s tension hinges on the historic Dutton Montana cattle ranch and the forces jockeying to take away patriarch John Dutton’s way of life. Coastal developers, Native American tribes and environmentalists are on one side, the Duttons on the other.

Portrayed by Kevin Costner, season five opens with John Dutton pursuing the Montana governorship only as a means to protect his family’s ranch. In his acceptance speech, Dutton lays out the stakes:

Environmentalists; they just love to debate what’s Montana’s most valuable resource? Is the water, or is it the walls? Is it the trees? The answer is actually pretty simple. It’s you. Cowboys and ranchers live with the land, off of it.

Yellowstone has trafficked in well worn tropes portraying environmentalists before. What was interesting in episode two, was a flashback to a younger Dutton. Designed to underscore how far he will go to protect the ranch, viewers witness young Dutton (Josh Lucas) cold cocking a construction company manager. Contracted to build a cellphone tower, the manager was spraying an “EPA approved” pesticide that found its way into Dutton’s water. Some of his cows died.

Later that night, Dutton and his men destroy the company’s construction equipment. Next, they steal the pesticides and dowse the manager and his house in the toxic agri-chemicals.

The FBI once defined “ecoterrorism” as:

the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against people or property by an environmentally oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons

and viewed “monkeywrenching,” as:

a euphemism for acts of sabotage and property destruction against industries and other entities perceived to be damaging to the natural environment.

Maybe its self-defense, maybe its revenge, but Dutton’s actions definitely fall into the monkeywrench category. What’s next for Montana’s new Governor, glue himself to a fat cat’s private jet in protest of coastal developers pillaging the state?

I appreciate Yellowstone’s commitment to telling environmental stories. But I’ll keep my expectations low for any conversations about the meat industry’s climate impacts. Ranch owner and show creator Taylor Sheridan was just announced as the keynote speaker at the National Cattlemen Beef Association’s annual meeting.

NCBA it should be noted, has not historically been a friend of the independent cattle rancher. And the well-heeled lobbying group has adopted a fossil-fuel-style, doubt-sowing communications campaign to thwart climate change accountability.

In early October I took a light-hearted look at the recent spate of green-minded comic book villains adapted for the big screen. The more I dug around, I found overwhelming evidence that environmentalist are often portrayed in scripted entertainment as the bad guy, a punchline, a scold -- or all three.

For a sequel, I went looking for answers, and possible solutions. To that end, I reached out to showbiz industry insiders and experts working at the intersection of environmentalism and entertainment and posed everyone the same two questions.

First, why are environmentalists portrayed negatively in scripted entertainment?

Kate Langrall Folb is the Director of Hollywood Health and Society, a program of the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center that provides the entertainment industry with accurate and up-to-date information for storylines on health, safety and security. 

We’ve been working on getting environmental topics into the heads of screenwriters, and therefore into their narratives for over ten years with some success. But in the beginning, getting positive portrayals of environmentalists was somewhat of a hurdle. 

We first started to see negative portrayals like the hippie activist chained to a tree. Then there was the lazy trope of eco-terrorists bombing things like oil derricks off the coast of California. And there’s always the holier than thou character that’s easy to point a finger at and laugh at. I think this came from a combination of denial of the seriousness of the issue, a fear of seeming preachy, and advertiser resistance.

Daniel Hinerfeld is the Director of the National Resource Defense Council’s Rewrite the Future. The NRDC initiative helps Hollywood represent the climate crisis in film and television.

There are cliches we’ve come to expect from Hollywood, including that the character who cares about the environment is often a liberal elitist, a scold, or an eco-terrorist. Those are useful tropes for creating drama and comedy, but they don’t do justice, and they’ve gotten long in the tooth.

Anna Jane Joyner is a climate story consultant and founder and director of Good Energy. Good Energy aims to “make it as easy as possible to portray the climate emergency on-screen in entertaining and artful ways, in any storyline, across every genre. With the Media Impact Project at the USC Norman Lear Center, they just released a new report on climate change in scripted entertainment.

Fossil-fuel companies have been investing in storytelling for many decades, and they spend a lot more money on it. It started in the 60s, when the environmental movement was making real ripples in society. They found a way to dilute our strength through painting people who care about the environment as a fringe, as unreasonable hippies, and it found its way into Hollywood. That was intentional.

Definitely the scold bothers me the most. It just can’t be the only trick, right? I actually don't have a problem with villain characters who care about climate. What I find most interesting are flawed characters who care about climate, so neither villain nor super heroes, but people you can relate to.

Katie Camosy, is a Senior Video Producer for Greenpeace, the global network of independent campaign organizations.

In some ways we get it: environmentalist characters have been easy ciphers for fiction writers. But why are environmentalists so often the antagonist or the prognosticator, but very rarely the protagonist? I think a lot of this comes down to a dated stereotype that was never actually true: a white environmentalist who wants to make you feel guilty.
 
The truth is, climate activists don’t want you to feel bad. We really don’t! We want you to feel energized and hopeful. Governments and corporations are the ones who ought to be turning their gaze inward. Even the white part of this clichéd character isn’t necessarily true: people of color in the U.S are in fact more concerned than white people are about the climate crisis. It’s no coincidence that the people most impacted are also the most concerned. 

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Second question , what can be done to alter these perceptions and integrate more positive stories about environmental work?

NRDC’s Hinerfeld:

Happily, I think Hollywood is turning a page and we’re starting to see more positive portrayals of environmentalists. Consider season two of Ted Lasso, in which Sam Obisanya leads a protest of the team’s sponsor, which he discovers is polluting his Nigerian homeland. Sam is represented as well-informed, brave, and victorious. And his campaign brings him closer with his teammates and his father.

Another recent example is Kate Dibiasky, the character played by Jennifer Lawrence in the climate allegory Don’t Look Up, who is a very sympathetic, if doomed, hero.

Film and television creators are starting to engage more thoughtfully with climate and environmental themes, so we’re likely to see portrayals of environmentalists that are more nuanced, interesting, and reflective of the real world than the cliches we’ve gotten used to.

Good Energy’s Anna Jane Joyner:

I don't think it's the role of television and film to depict people who care about the climate in any way that isn't authentic to the story. I do think we need to see more characters that reflect genuine and growing concern and anxiety about climate change across multiple characters.

Jennifer Lawrence's character in Don’t Look Up is one I've seen in television or film that I could really relate to their emotional experience. With the Playbook, (Good Energy’s Playbook for Screenwriting in the Age of Climate Change) we asked why does the person who cares about climate always have to be mad? Why can't they be the cool character? When you look at American opinions on climate — especially among younger people — it is the majority that are concerned about what’s happening.

Hollywood Health and Society’s Kate Langrall Folb:

When you think about broadcast television, the majority of ads these days are for fossil fuel, cars and pharmaceuticals. Advertisers wield an enormous amount of clout when it comes to what gets on the shows they sponsor. On the positive side, I recently had calls from two major studios that produce both television and film. They are interested in looking at all their content to get a good sense of what they’ve done on the climate change and environmental issues, and more important, what was the quality of the content. Something’s happened, it’s possible it’s because climate change is upon us. I think the attitude has shifted.

Greenpeace’s Katie Camosy has the final word:

I suspect that as we see more environmentalist characters in our entertainment, we’ll also see versions that better reflect real people we know in our own lives. At Greenpeace we’ve gone from being hit with golf balls in 1998’s Armageddon to receiving a $250 million donation in last year’s Succession. It’s progress!

Maybe like me you were surprised to learn the US Environmental Protection Agency uses actual special agents to hunt down criminal polluters.

“It’s traditional law enforcement in a non-traditional area,” former EPA Criminal Investigation Division Director Doug Parker told me for an investigation into biofuel fraud. “Some of us called ourselves the power behind the flower,” Parker said of the self-appointed moniker used by some agents in a nod to the agency’s logo.

Even cooler, the EPA communications team compiles a quarterly crime bulletin, detailing relevant enforcement actions. The quarterly dispatch offers a fascinating window into the work of the agency’s Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training.

While the US hasn’t seen a spike in organized environmental crime like the rest of the world, there’s plenty of toxic independent actors starring in the EPA crime bulletin. Another takeaway is that eco-cops walking the green beat are often all that stand between us and America’s next cancer cluster.

Here are two “highlights” from earlier this year.

Case1: A Pack of Lone Wolves

On February 22nd, a US District Judge sentenced Kenneth Fulton of Oklahoma to two years of probation and a $10,000 fine. In 2017, the City of El Reno, Oklahoma hired Veolia North America to manage its water treatment plant. As plant manager for Veolia, Fulton faked tests that showed high levels of e. coli the company was discharging into a nearby river. He did this to purposely deceive EPA and Oklahoma regulators. E. coli infections are dangerous, can cause bloody diarrhea and are particularly damaging to children and the elderly.

In a statement, Veolia called Fulton’s crime “lone-wolf actions by a former employee.” But Fulton’s case doesn’t seem to be an isolated event. In this deeply reported piece in the Oklahoma Watch, M. Scott Carter made a compelling case that Veolia North America is a serial polluter with a culture of corporate malfeasance.

For three Oklahoma communities, the issues with water and wastewater became so large they frightened residents and evolved into an ongoing nightmare for city officials — a nightmare the cities spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars trying to fix.

At first glance, the water problem in each town seemed unique, but underneath there was a common thread: a private water company called Veolia North America.

Communities in Massachusetts, Michigan and Pennsylvania have experienced similar problems — or worse — with Veolia’s water management. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette charged Veolia with fraud and negligence for failing to discover Flint’s lead contamination problem after the city hired the company in 2015 to consult on water quality.

Federal court records show that Veolia North America faces 309 open federal lawsuits. In Oklahoma, the company is fighting six open lawsuits.

Case 2: To Catch a Predator

This next case shows how environmental crimes are often bundled with other illegal activities like tax fraud and customs violations. Former mail carrier Christopher Cox of Tacoma Washington was sentenced on January 28th to a paltry two months in prison for pleading guilty to three felonies.

Between 2015 and January 2019, Cox falsified required paperwork on vehicles he imported from overseas that did not meet U.S. safety and emissions standards. He used his status as a contract mail carrier to circumvent inspections at the Port of Tacoma and took the vehicles from the Port without proper inspections. But that’s not the worst part. From the DOJ release:

When law enforcement officers served search warrants on Cox’s electronic accounts, they observed images of child pornography.  Some of the images are known series of images of child rape and abuse manufactured outside the State of Washington.  When officers executed search warrants on Cox’s residence and obtained his electronic devices, they located 142 images and 2 videos of child molestation, rape and abuse.

A pass on environmental crimes is sadly du jour for our current society. Prosecutors had asked for a two-year stint in prison at minimum for this monster and seethed at the judge’s feather light sentence.

“We advocated for a lengthier punishment for Mr. Cox to best protect the community and are disappointed by today’s sentence."

In the coming weeks Black Rhino Media will tackled more EPA crime bulletin cases in our next Flower Power Roundup. Thanks for reading.