Chrysalis with John Fiege

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/20-todd-scott-detroit-greenways-coalition20. Todd Scott – Detroit Greenways CoalitionListen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.The ways we live our lives, design our communities, and move around within those communities are all intimately connected to the ecological health of the planet.Most North American cities are designed around the automobile or at least cars have come to dominate these urban landscapes, far more than in European or Asian cities.There are few cities in the world more closely associated with the automobile than Detroit, Michigan. Motown.But the privileging of cars in Motor City, and other cities around the country and around the globe, has had dramatic costs, from polluted air and water and a high number of traffic fatalities, to transportation inequality and high levels of carbon pollution.The Detroit Greenways Coalition is looking to change all that, right in the heart of the world’s automotive power center. Todd Scott is the executive director of the Detroit Greenways Coalition, and he joins me to discuss how their work promoting greenways throughout the city is improving people’s health and happiness, beautifying a very industrial city, reducing inequality and climate impacts, and a whole host of other benefits, even economic development.Listen on Apple PodcastsThis is a tale about Detroit, but if this work can happen in Motor City, it can happen anywhere, and Todd’s stories will inspire you to go outside, find some green space and some fresh air, meet your neighbors, and explore wherever it is you live.Listen on SpotifyI’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. You can subscribe at johnfiege.earth, where you will also find show notes and all episodes of the podcast, plus my writing, photographs, and films.Here is Todd Scott.Listen on YouTubeCreditsThis episode was researched by Lydia Montgomery and edited by Sarah Westrich, with additional editing by Isabella Fleming, Amy Cavanaugh, Arthur Koenig, Kate Fair, and Marta Kondratiuk. Music is by Daniel Rodriguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.-----------Subscribe at https://www.johnfiege.earth/

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/Show notes: www.johnfiege.earth/19-jim-morris-dont-worry-nothing-here-will-hurt-you/19. Jim Morris — Don't Worry, Nothing Here Will Hurt YouListen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.You may have Goodyear tires on your car or truck. Many Americans do. Goodyear is the leading tire manufacturer in this country.Listen on Apple PodcastsWhat you may not know is that the process of making these tires has led to horrendous impacts on the environment and human health.We think of tires as being made of “rubber,” derived from the sap of rubber trees, mostly from Southeast Asia—a process that’s led to massive deforestation in the region. However, natural rubber makes up only a portion of a modern tire, usually around 19% in cars and 34% in trucks. The rest of the tire is made up of a mix of other materials, including synthetic rubber, derived from petrochemicals, and other chemical additives.In episode 16 of Chrysalis, I spoke with Sean Dixon of Puget Soundkeeper about the toxic effects of one of the chemical additives in tires, called 6PPD.A different chemical additive, which prevents tires from cracking, is produced using a chemical called ortho-toluidine, or simply O-T. This chemical causes bladder cancer, and it generates another chemical as a byproduct, called diphenylamine or DPA, which is a possible carcinogen that may damage the bladder, kidneys, and liver.Right now, I’m in Buffalo, New York, right next door to Niagara Falls, where there’s a Goodyear plant that’s been using ortho-toluidine since 1957.Since the 1980s, at least 78 workers at Goodyear have developed bladder cancer, making it one of the nation’s worst known cancer clusters at a single workplace.Jim Morris is a Houston-based investigative journalist, who has spent his career tracking the path of toxic chemicals through American industry and into the bloodstreams of workers. In his recent book, The Cancer Factory, Morris tells the story of workers at the Goodyear chemical plant in Niagara Falls who were exposed to ortho-toluidine and what their plight reveals about the ongoing failure of American industry and government to protect its workers.I interviewed Jim, live on stage, at the University at Buffalo, on September 26, 2024. In our conversation, we explore the failures to protect workers and the environment from deadly chemicals and what changes are needed to prevent these tragedies in the future.At the event, we were very lucky to have one of the Goodyear workers and bladder cancer victims in the audience. His name is Harry Weist, and we invite him to say a few words at the beginning. Then, at the end, he comes on stage to participate in the question and answer session. Hearing from him directly, with tears in his eyes, is very powerful.This story is historical, but it is also very much alive in the present. Just a week before we recorded the interview, Jim broke another Goodyear story—this time, rather than being about workplace exposure, the story was about ortho-toluidine pollution in the neighborhoods around Goodyear’s Niagara Falls plant. Jim wrote the article together with Emyle Watkins, an investigative reporter at WBFO, Buffalo’s NPR Station.Jim and his collaborators at Public Health Watch, WBFO, and Inside Climate News, obtained previously undisclosed Department of Environmental Conservation documents through open-records requests that show that Goodyear has been putting ortho-toluidine in the air around its Niagara Falls plant at levels 1,000% higher than what New York State regulators now consider safe for the public to breathe.Here’s what he and Emyle Watkins write in the article:“The state officially knew of the excess plant emissions no later than February 2023, when a Goodyear contractor submitted a report detailing test results. But a January 2010 email to Goodyear from Jacqueline DiPronio, then an environmental program specialist with the DEC in Buffalo, suggests the state had suspicions about the pollution-control equipment 13 years earlier, after the company submitted data of dubious quality.”Whether it was a year and half earlier, or 13 years earlier, the Department of Environmental Conservation did not notify the public after it learned of the elevated ortho-toluidine levels in the air. The families living near the plant in Niagara Falls did not know they were being exposed to elevated ortho-toluidine levels until Jim and his collaborators published their reporting.Soon after they published this article and several follow-up articles, the Department of Conservation initiating a process that will force Goodyear to install new technology that brings the level of ortho-toluidine emissions from the plant into compliance with current regulations. Many activists are still dissatisfied with how the state is addressing the problem, but Goodyear must now have the new pollution-control technology installed and functioning by the end of October 2026.That’s the power of great journalism.If you listened to my interview with Lois Gibbs that I released last week, a lot of this might sound familiar. Lois’s husband in the 1970s worked at this same Goodyear plant, while she was at home fighting to uncover the truth about the chemicals buried under her Love Canal neighborhood.Jim quotes Lois Gibbs in his article saying, “‘Nothing changes in Niagara Falls. Nothing changes at the DEC.’” She also told him that “emissions from Goodyear’s stacks used to fall on workers’ vehicles in the plant parking lot and dissolve the paint. The company regularly paid to have the vehicles repainted.”What is clear to me from all of these stories is that these chemical companies are run by people who have shown again and again that they are willing to put the lives of their workers and their neighbors at great risk in order to maximize profits for themselves.While government officials in New York have hardly showed a backbone or a sense of urgency with regard to Goodyear’s toxic emissions, at least we’re in New York, where we have some functioning environmental regulations.The role of state governments is more important than ever now that we have a president in the White House who calls environmental regulations “illegitimate impediments.” In July of 2025, President Trump gave two-year exemptions from EPA emissions standards to over 100 facilities, including chemical plants, refineries, and other polluting industries around the country. And the people who live in the neighborhoods around these facilities have limited, if any, information about what they and their children are breathing or drinking on a daily basis.As always, we need good journalism to expose the abuses of government and industry. Not surprisingly, Trump has also waged an unprecedented assault on journalism.Jim Morris is one of those essential journalists. He has won more than eighty-five awards, including the George Polk award, the Sidney Hillman award, three National Association of Science Writers awards, and three Edward R. Murrow awards. He is now the executive director and editor-in-chief at Public Health Watch.I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. You can subscribe at johnfiege.earth, where you will also find show notes and all episodes of the podcast, plus my writing, photographs, and films.Here is Jim Morris.-----------CreditsThis episode was produced and edited by Amy Cavanaugh, with additional editing by Isabella Fleming. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.-----------Subscribe at https://www.johnfiege.earth/

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/18-lois-gibbs-the-legacy-of-love-canal/18. Lois Gibbs — The Legacy of Love CanalListen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.When Lois Gibbs moved into the Love Canal neighborhood of Niagara Falls in 1972, she had no idea how radically her life was about to change.Listen on Apple PodcastsShe was newly married, with a baby son. Her husband had a well-paid job at the Goodyear chemical plant, and she loved her white picket fence in this recently constructed neighborhood with many other young families.Over the next several years, her son began to have seizures, which was one of many mysterious illnesses that emerged among children in the neighborhood, including Lois’s second child.She started asking questions, and she refused to stop asking questions.She and her neighbors began to organize, eventually attracting the attention of the national media and even the President of the United States.The secrets they discovered, and their refusal to leave politics and science to the so-called experts, changed the environmental movement forever.I got to sit down with Lois on stage in front of a sold-out audience at the University at Buffalo on April 20, 2023, to talk about her story and where its led her since those tumultuous years in the 1970s.Lois Gibbs is a legendary environmental justice pioneer, and her vibrant spirit is a massive inspiration to me in these dark times. Her stories are incredible, and they reveal how her persistence, resourcefulness, and strategic intelligence were instrumental in the struggle to clean up hazardous waste sites in the United States.I’m John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis. You can subscribe at johnfiege.earth, where you will also find show notes and all episodes of the podcast, plus my writing, photographs, and films.Here is Lois Gibbs.Watch the Video on YouTube-----------CreditsThis episode was edited by Isabella Fleming and Blake Barit. Color grading is by Isabella Fleming. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.A special thank you Nick Henshue and Ken Zidell of the Department of Environment and Sustainability for organizing the event.A special thank you as well to Hope Dunbar at the University at Buffalo Archives, who helped organize the event and provided all of the archival photographs.Thank you to the co-sponsors of the event: Department of Environment and Sustainability, Department of Media Study, and University Archives at the University at Buffalo—and to the Center for the Arts for providing the space and the video recording.-----------Subscribe at https://www.johnfiege.earth/

Subscribe to Chrysalis at https://www.johnfiege.earth/Show notes: https://www.johnfiege.earth/17-transformation-for-a-new-era/17. Transformation for a New EraListen to Chrysalis on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Captivate.Today, I’m relaunching the Chrysalis newsletter and podcast with a new website, a new logo, and a new purpose. In the past year, here in the United States, we have witnessed one assault after another on environmental protections and ecological health, coupled with simultaneous assaults on democracy, civil rights, international cooperation, the rule of law, common decency—even truth itself. Through this difficult and painful year, as the news has been clogged with a dizzying and endless string of stories about the U.S. government’s assault on people and the natural world, I have reconceived and reworked Chrysalis to respond to our current moment.I launched the Chrysalis podcast in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was an experiment. I’m primarily a documentary filmmaker, making films about environmental issues and our relationship to the natural world, but I wanted to tell more stories, be in conversation with more people, more frequently, and reach a wider audience.The last podcast episode I released was eight days before the American people elected Donald Trump to be president of the United States for a second time. After his election, we found ourselves in a new historical era.American administrations of every political stripe have failed to prioritize or effectively confront the cascading crises of climate change, habitat destruction, mass extinction, and environmental injustice. Nonetheless, Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 Presidential election was the realization of a worst-case scenario for the environment and those who care about protecting it.After the 2024 election, I asked myself what I could do with the podcast, and my work more generally, knowing that there was about to be a full frontal assault on wolves and birds, forests and wetlands, clean air and clean water, environmental regulations, environmental justice, the clean energy transition, efforts to reduce plastics and other waste, and who knows what else from this new regime that was willing to break laws and ethical norms to enrich themselves and their political donors at any cost to the country or the planet.I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know what to do.Before the election, in August of 2024, I found out that I was awarded the largest and most competitive grant of my career. The National Endowment for the Humanities was going to give me a development grant for my new film about consumption and waste in New York City. I was planning to focus on development of the project for the next year in order to apply for the even larger production grant the following year.When Trump was elected, I knew there would be no second grant. Even though past Republican administrations were hostile to the arts and humanities, the arts and humanities endowments survived their administrations and funded projects that didn’t align necessarily with Republican priorities. Trump 2.0 felt like it was going to be different. I decided I needed to figure out how to use my development grant to make the entire film very quickly.I put the podcast on pause to focus on making this film while I could. Then, in April of 2025, Trump cancelled my development grant, along with almost all other National Endowment for the Humanities grants. The letter I received, notifying me that the grant had been cancelled a week earlier, stated “NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda...The termination of your grant represents an urgent priority for the administration, and due to exceptional circumstances, adherence to the traditional notification process is not possible.” Exceptional circumstances indeed.I am very lucky to be a professor at the University at Buffalo, and this New York State university stepped in over the following several months to find replacement funding for much of what I lost to Trump’s assault on the federal government. This film project is now underway, despite the set-backs, and I’m ready to get the podcast back up and running.Here’s my plan: first, I’m bringing all of my work—writing, podcasting, photographs, and films—under a single new digital roof at johnfiege.earth. I’ve moved the website to a non-profit, distributed, open source publishing platform, called Ghost, which has no owners or investors.Second, I will be adding my own essays to the newsletter, examining current environmental topics, and releasing those written pieces as audio essays on the podcast, as I continue to release long-form conversations with environmental thinkers.Third, we have a new logo, designed by the talented Alexa Rusin, using one of my butterfly photographs. The new logo is a completely new look that helps tie my photographic work to the newsletter and podcast, but it still represents the theme of transformation at the heart of the Chrysalis project and the beauty of the world that I want to protect and nourish.And lastly, I am introducing a paid subscription option for the newsletter and podcast. Since the podcast’s inception, a hardworking team of students and interns has helped make the show possible, but my very limited financial resources have prevented me from growing, working more quickly, and releasing episodes more frequently. I want the newsletter and podcast to always be freely available to anyone, without advertising. However, the Chrysalis project needs more funding to grow and become self-sustaining, and a paid subscription option is a key element of this effort.Paying members will have access to the same newsletters and podcasts as the free option, but they will also have access to the community comments section of the newsletter and to streaming of my documentary films, both shorts and feature-length films. I want to make sure that money never limits anyone’s access to Chrysalis, but I also want to give audience members the ability to support the project, help it grow, and subsidize free access for everyone else.Tomorrow morning, I will be releasing the first new episode: my conversation with the legendary environmental justice pioneer, Lois Gibbs, who was a young mother in the 1970s when her children became sick in her new neighborhood of Love Canal, in Niagara Falls, New York, right next door to where I now live in Buffalo. Lois refused to sit down and be quiet, as leaders in government, industry, and academia dismissed and derided her as an hysterical housewife. Her story has been widely known for decades, but she’s a real rock star, and her stories are unbelievably power when you hear them from her. Her vibrant spirit is a massive inspiration to me in these dark times. I interviewed Lois live in front of an audience, and we were able to film the event, so we’ll also be releasing the video version of the episode on our new Chrysalis YouTube channel.Lois will be kicking off what I call our Toxic Spring here at Chrysalis. The next week, we will release my conversation with Jim Morris, who wrote a brilliantly reported and devastating account of the largest cancer cluster ever to be identified at a single work place. That work place was the Goodyear chemical plant, also in Niagara Falls. In fact, Lois Gibbs’s husband in the 1970s worked at the Goodyear plant while she was at home fighting to expose the truth about toxic chemicals under their feet.The Toxic Spring and the connections to Love Canal will continue with a live recording of the podcast on March 11 with Mike Schade, who works on campaigns to reduce toxic chemicals with a group called Toxic-Free Future. Mike started here in Buffalo and used to work with Lois Gibbs.The following month, on April 16, I’ll be doing another live podcast recording with two other people related to Love Canal. The first is Luella Kenny, who was another mother at Love Canal in the 1970s, alongside Lois Gibbs, but Luella was also a cancer researcher. I’ll be in conversation with her, along with Keith O’Brien, who wrote a book that features Luella and Lois’s stories, called Paradise Falls: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe.Both of these live shows will be released later as podcasts. If you’re in Buffalo, check out our website for more event details.Regardless of where you live, the best way you can help us grow and get the word out is to subscribe to the newsletter at johnfiege.earth and then tell your friends about the newsletter and podcast.I would also love to hear from you—your reactions to the show, what you’re interested in reading on the newsletter or hearing on the podcast, or anything else you’d like to share. You can contact me anytime at johnfiege.earth.It’s a been a rough year for many of us, but I’m looking forward to exploring the new possibilities we have in this pivotal moment in history to transform ourselves and our relationship to the natural world. Please join me.It’s going to be a fun ride.-----------Notes and Media RecommendationsIn His First 100 Days, Trump Launched an ‘All-Out Assault’ on the Environmenthttps://insideclimatenews.org/news/30042025/trump-second-administration-first-100-days-assault-on-the-environment/TRUMP’S ASSAULT ON THE ENVIRONMENT HAS BEEN EVEN WORSE THAN EXPERTS PREDICTEDhttps://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-assault-environment-climate-change-fight-1235494125/Trump’s Assault on the State of Our Health and the Environmenthttps://www.nrdc.org/media/trumps-assault-state-our-health-and-environmentCultural groups across U.S. told that federal humanities grants are terminatedhttps://www.npr.org/2025/04/03/nx-s1-5350994/neh-grants-cut-humanities-doge-trump-----------CreditsThis episode was edited by Isabella Fleming. Music is by Daniel Rodríguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.-----------Subscribe at https://www.johnfiege.earth/

The tires of your car have a chemical in them, called 6PPD, that slows tire degradation by binding with oxygen and ozone that could break down the rubber. But these same reactions that protect the rubber are also creating a new chemical, called 6PPD-quinone, which scientists just found in 2020 to be highly toxic to aquatic organisms.6PPD is in essentially every tire made since the 1960s, and aquatic ecosystems around the world, particularly in dense urban areas, are in danger.Listen on Apple PodcastsCoho salmon is particularly susceptible to the toxin, and salmon populations in the Seattle area have been decimated by stormwater runoff containing the tiny particles that wear off tires as they speed down the road.Now that the science is clear, the search is on to find a substitute for 6PPD; but for many years to come, the pollutants will continue to shed from our tires and into our waterways.How to stop the stormwater from getting to the salmon and other aquatic organisms is one of the many ways that the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance is advocating for the ecological health of Puget Sound and other waterways in the Seattle area.Sean Dixon leads these efforts as the executive director of the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, which is part of the worldwide network of waterkeepers.I discuss with Sean the work he’s doing in Seattle but also the waterkeeper movement more broadly and the importance of organized, community-engaged action to protect waterways and the diverse ecosystems that depend on them across the planet.Subscribe on GhostThis episode of Chrysalis is part of the Chrysalis Projects series. You can listen on Ghost, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms.Please rate, review, and share to help us spread the word!Sean DixonAs Executive Director of Puget Soundkeeper, Sean works with the entire Soundkeeper staff team, board, and network of community partners, volunteers, and advocates to drive clean water progress across the Puget Sound and its watershed. As an attorney, entrepreneur, and environmental advocate, Sean has worked for years defending communities and ecosystems from pollution, supporting sustainable fisheries, pushing for climate adaptation and mitigation, and fighting for innovative approaches to solving the myriad threats facing our oceans, coasts, and waterways. Before moving to the PNW, Sean worked as an attorney at Hudson Riverkeeper, a local sustainable seafood fishmonger, and, most recently, as Chief of Staff for the Region 1 (New England) office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.Sean currently serves as the Publications Officer for the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources, and holds an LL.M. in Climate Change Law and a J.D. in Environmental Law from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, in White Plains, NY, a master’s degree from the Yale School of the Environment, and a B.A. in Marine Biology and Oceanography from Boston University.CreditsThis episode was researched by Lydia Montgomery and edited by Sarah Westrich, with additional editing by Isabella Nurt, Amy Cavanaugh, Arthur Koenig, Kate Fair, and Marta Kondratiuk. Music is by Daniel Rodriguez Vivas. Mixing is by Morgan Honaker.Subscribe on Ghost