Tag Archives: Environment

The world is on fire. While that seems alarmist, this summer has been the summer of fire. Wildfires have spread all around the world, with specific fires in Spain, France, Canada and the US seizing global headlines. While the summer in the northern hemisphere is typically wildfire season, this year seems to mark an increased intensity and occurrences of these fires. On today’s show we will explore what has been the cause of these fires. What environmental conditions have lead to the increased intensity of these fires? And what should be done both locally and globally to better manage wildfires? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Doug Specht is a Chartered Geographer, a Reader in Cultural Geography and Communication, and Head of the School of Media and Communication at the University of Westminster. He is the author of Mapping crisis: Participation, datafication and humanitarianism in the age of digital mapping and most recently in the Conversation There’s nothing ‘wild’ about most wildfires, humans start them and have made them more dangerous.
Daniel Swain is climate scientist with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UCANR) and a research partner at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research. He is the co-author of Anthropogenic warming has increased drought risk in California and Climate change is increasing the risk of a California megaflood. He is the author of the Weather West blog.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, Anna Lapin and Sudd Dongre.

Environment, Politics and Activism, Climate Change, Environmental Activism, Wildfires

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Current and Future Migration Issues within US from Climate Disasters – August 2, 2026

August 2, 2026 host

Climate change will lead to climate migration. There has been a renewed interest in adaptation strategies. Mitigation efforts seek to limit the amount of greenhouse gases in the environment to slow climate change. But adaptation recognizes that the climate has changed and we as a society and as a planet must adapt to these rising temperatures and the changing ecosystem. We will explore some of the challenges for adaptation.

We Interview Jesse M.Keenan author of the book North: Future of Post Climate America. He surveys places which are vulnerable to climate change effects and what are the state and regional implication of migration North in America. [ dur: 26mins. ]

Jesse M. Keenan is Favrot II Associate Professor of Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment. His research advances the interdisciplinary fields of sustainable real estate and infrastructure finance and development. He is the author of the book North: Future of Post Climate America.

How is climate change affecting place, where we live, who can move off the coasts, and who is immobile despite living in climate-threatened zones? And what does it mean for the well-being, the economy, politics and for the regions themselves? [ dur: 32mins. ]

Jesse M. Keenan is Favrot II Associate Professor of Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment. His research advances the interdisciplinary fields of sustainable real estate and infrastructure finance and development. He is the author of the book North: Future of Post Climate America.
Matt Hauer is Charles B. Nam Associate Professor, Department of Sociology – Center for Demography and Population Health at Florida State University. He is the co-author of Sea-level rise and human migration.

This program was originally recorded in Nov. 2025.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian, Sudd Dongre and Anna Lapin.

Environment, Financial, Climate Change, Ecosystems, Governance / Law, United States, Urbanism

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – What happened at COP30 in Brazil ? – December 14, 2025

December 14, 2025 host

The recent UN COP (Conference of Parties) climate summit revealed fissures about how to solve the problem of climate change. What are the divisions? How can states and people help mitigate climate change? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Pamela Chasek is Professor of Political Science at Manhattan College. She is the co-founder and Executive Editor of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. She is the author of Transforming Multilateral Diplomacy: The Inside Story of the Sustainable Development Goals, Global Environmental Politics, and The Global Environment in the 21st Century: Prospects for International Cooperation.
Shannon Gibson is Associate Professor of Political Science, International Relations, and Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California. She is the author of the forthcoming book Politics of Global Environment. She’s also the author of a recent article in the Conversation How climate finance to help poor countries became a global shell game….

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian, Doug Becker and Sudd Dongre.

Environment, Politics and Activism, Climate Change, Environmental Activism

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Book Author interview – North : Future of Post climate America – November 23, 2025

November 24, 2025 host

Jesse M. Keenan is Favrot II Associate Professor of Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment. His research advances the interdisciplinary fields of sustainable real estate and infrastructure finance and development. He is the author of the book North: Future of Post Climate America.

Jesse M. Keenan is Favrot II Associate Professor of Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment. His research advances the interdisciplinary fields of sustainable real estate and infrastructure finance and development. He is the author of the book North: Future of Post Climate America.
Matt Hauer is Charles B. Nam Associate Professor, Department of Sociology – Center for Demography and Population Health at Florida State University. He is the author of Sea-level rise and human migration.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian, Sudd Dongre and Anna Lapin .

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Brazil’s militarized police & disappearances ; Insights on innovative technologies to address climate change factors – November 9, 2025

November 9, 2025 host

Violent policing and “disappearing” people is continuing in Brazil, even today in 2025. How is Brazilian civil society responding? [ dur: 33mins. ]

Erica Resende is an Assistant Professor of International Relations and Security Studies at the Brazilian National War College in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is the co-editor of Defending Memory in Global Politics Mnemonical In/Security and Crisis, Memory and Trauma in International Relations: Theories, Cases and Debates and Crisis and Change in Post Cold-War Global Politics.

People around the world have developed innovative new technologies to mitigate or adapt to climate change. In many cases, adoption has proved difficult as governments and some large corporations have been reluctant to support them. Who are developing these technological solutions? What are some of these technologies? Can they help protect us from the worst of climate change? [ dur: 25mins. ]

Transcript of this interview can be found here : link.

Holly Beals, a strategic director & Senior Innovation Specialist, Aurora Climate Lab Lead at Creative HQ;
Michael Fielding is Chief Executive at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Ventures and Co-Founder of Dot Ingredients.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Known Environmental impact of the US Military – November 2, 2025

November 2, 2025 host

We spend the hour looking at the environmental impact of the US military. How much does the US military pollute the environment? What is their role in climate change causing green house emissions? The military has taken some measures to reduce its impact on the environment and green gas emissions, but our guests say these measures do little to assuage the military’s bigger effects on climate change. What are these effects and what can be done about them?[ dur: 58mins. ]

This interview was recorded July 2019. For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

Benjamin Neimark is Senior Lecturer at the University of Lancaster, United Kingdom. He is the author of Speaking Power to ‘Post-Truth’: Critical Political Ecology and the New Authoritarianism and co-author of Hidden carbon costs of the “everywhere war” Logistics, geopolitical ecology, and the carbon boot‐print of the US military.
Oliver Belcher is an Assistant Professor in Human Geography at Durham University, United Kingdom. He is the author of Anatomy of a village razing: Counterinsurgency, violence, and securing the intimate in Afghanistan, and co-author of Hidden carbon costs of the “everywhere war” Logistics, geopolitical ecology, and the carbon boot‐print of the US military.
Neta C. Crawford is Professor of Political Science and Department Chair at Boston University. She is the author of the book Accountability for Killing: Moral Responsibility for Collateral Damage in America’s Post-9/11 Wars and the research paper Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change,and the Costs of War

Produced by the Scholars’ Circle team: Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin, Anaïs Amin, Tim Page, Mike Hurst and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Trump’s anti-green energy policies ; ICJ climate change ruling for all affected states – October 19, 2025

October 23, 2025 host

Green energy shunned by the Trump Administration, we examine how this affects US economy, energy costs and green technology leadership. [ dur: 22mins. ]

Shannon Gibson is Associate Professor of Political Science, International Relations, and Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California. She’s also the author of Climate Change or Social Change? Environmental and Leftist Praxis and Participatory Action Research and State-led social boundary change: Transnational environmental activism, ‘ecoterrorism’ and September 11.
Dr. Kelly Twomey Sanders is an Associate Professor in the University of Southern California’s Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. She is the co-author of Integrating Sociodemographic, Health, and Environmental Data to Assess the Spatiotemporal Trends of Vulnerability to Heatwaves in California .

International Court of Justice (ICJ ) made decision on behalf of Vanuatu in July 2025 Recognizing the “urgent and existential threat” facing the world, granting those harmed by human-caused climate change may be entitled to “reparations”. [ dur: 35mins. ]

Johanna L. Gusman Regional Adviser for Human Rights and Social Development at the Pacific Community (SPC) based in Suva, Fiji. She has authored Pacific Island Countries Make Historic Submissions to the International Court of Justice Climate Change Advisory Opinion.
Dr. Justin Sobion Lectures on Environmental Law at University of Auckland, New Zealand. He has contributed chapter to Reflections on Earth Trusteeship. Mother Earth and a new 21st-century governance paradigm.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

Environment, Politics and Activism, Climate Change, Renewable Energy, Governance / Law

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Safe drinking water delivery in US ; Floods and aftermath in Ellicott City, Maryland – July 20, 2025

July 22, 2025 host

Although Access to safe drinking water is a human right, millions of people in the United States do no have access to safe water. Lead in the pipes is the most well-known cause but there are many others. What can be done to fix the nation’s water delivery systems? What have we learned from the Flint case? [ dur: 34mins. ]

Newsha Ajami is Chief Development Officer for Research at the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. She is the co-author of Building water resilience in the face of cascading wildfire risks and Infrastructure and the Digital Economy: Reinventing Our Role in the Design, Financing, and Governance of Essential Services for Society.
Benjamin J. Pauli is Associate Professor of Social Science at the Department of Liberal Arts at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan. He is the author of Flint Fights Back: Environmental Justice and Democracy in the Flint Water Crisis.

photo of flooding of the main street in Ellicott City, Maryland. Tile shown, After the Floods - The Search for Resilience in Ellicott City by Ken Conca.

Segment 2: Why did Ellicott City flood not once, but twice in 22 months (July 2016, May 2018)? How can “once in a thousand years’ rainfalls happen so close to one another? How do cities respond to extreme weather? We speak with Ken Conca author of After the Floods: The Search for Resilience in Ellicott City.[ dur: 22mins. ]

Dr. Ken Conca is Professor of environment, development, & health at American University. He is the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Water Politics and Policy and his recent book After the Floods: The Search for Resilience in Ellicott City.

Music clip by Sam Cooke – Change is going to come

Poetry by Rachel Dillon – Dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem

This show was originally published Oct. 2023

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Book Author interview – Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land ; Mining the Ocean Floor – July 13, 2025

July 18, 2025 host

The search for a safe haven for Jewish people in the early 20th Century led some Zionists to land on Galveston, Texas as a potential homeland for Jewish refugees.

Collage of jewish people in search of homeland

What was the Galveston Movement and what happened to it? We interviews the author of a new book MELTING POINT: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land. [ dur: 35mins. ]

Rachel Cockerell is a writer and historian.

Then, the search for minerals is leading some corporations to begin mining the ocean floor but scientists warn that this could devastate fragile ecosystems that will have repercussions that we still don’t understand. What is going on in the deep sea? What precautions should be taken to prevent devastating fragile ecosystems? [ dur: 23 mins. ]

Craig Smith is Professor of Oceanography at the University of Hawai’i.
Verena Tunnicliffe is a marine biologist at the University of Victoria in Canada where she holds a Canada Research Chair in Deep Ocean Research.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, and Sudd Dongre.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Emolument Clause & Trump Qatar gifts ; The harm of microplastics – May 25, 2025

May 27, 2025 host

What exactly is an emolument? Is the airplane gift from Qatar to President Trump an emolument? Is it evidence of corruption? Has the Supreme Court continued to enable corruption? Our guests interpret the Emolument Clauses in the U.S. Constitution. [ dur: 26mins. ]

Clark D. Cunningham is Lee Byrd’s Chair in Law and Ethics at Georgia State University College of Law. He is the author of Using Empirical Data to Investigate the Original Meaning of Emoluments. In the Constitution, and has co-authored several amicus briefs on the Using Empirical Data to Investigate the Original Meaning of “Emolument” in the Constitution.”Emolument” in the Constitution.
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy is the Professor of Law at Stetson Law School. She’s the author of The Stakes of the Supreme Court’s Pro-Corruption Rulings in the Age of Trump. And the very recent publication, Corporatocracy how to protect democracy from dark money And corrupt politicians.

From the arctic to the depths of the oceans, microplastics are wreaking havoc, posing health threats to human health, animal life & the ecosystems on which we all rely. How did we get here and what can we do? [ dur: 26mins. ]

Samantha Ladewig is Research Fellow at University of Auckland, NZ. She is the co-author of Benthic ecosystem function responses to plasticizer content in polyester and PVC .
Nathalie Gontard is Research Director at INRAE (National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment). She is the author of Recognizing the long-term impacts of plastic particles for preventing distortion in decision-making.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Maria Armoudian, Ankine Aghassian, and Sudd Dongre.

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The Scholars' Circle Interviews

Tag Archives: Environment

Scholars’ Circle – Wildfires Erupting Across Europe and North America – August 23, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – Current and Future Migration Issues within US from Climate Disasters – August 2, 2026

Scholars’ Circle – What happened at COP30 in Brazil ? – December 14, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Brazil’s militarized police & disappearances ; Insights on innovative technologies to address climate change factors – November 9, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Known Environmental impact of the US Military – November 2, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Trump’s anti-green energy policies ; ICJ climate change ruling for all affected states – October 19, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Safe drinking water delivery in US ; Floods and aftermath in Ellicott City, Maryland – July 20, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Book Author interview – Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land ; Mining the Ocean Floor – July 13, 2025

Scholars’ Circle – Emolument Clause & Trump Qatar gifts ; The harm of microplastics – May 25, 2025

By Maria Armoudian