Green Dreamer: Seeding change towards collective healing, sustainability, regeneration

“We often forget that Black farmers were the foundation of the civil rights movement. Actually, a lot of Black agrarian scholars and organizers, and even some policy advocates that have been doing this work for a long time, would say that there’d be no civil rights movement if it wasn’t for Black farmers.” In this episode, we welcome dr. shakara tyler, a returning-generation farmer, educator and organizer who engages in Black agrarianism, agroecology, food sovereignty and environmental justice as commitments of abolition and decolonization. She serves as Board President at the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN), board member of the Detroit People’s Food Co-op (DPFC) and co-founder of the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund (DBFLF) and a member of the Black Dirt Farm Collective (BDFC). Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast. Join our Patreon and contribute a gift of any amount today to help keep our platform alive: greendreamer.com/support // The musical offering featured in this episode Over It by RVBY MY DEAR. //

“What I find worth remarking upon is the fact that the vast majority of people are so alienated from the Bluefin’s life world that they don’t know what an extraordinary creature she is—and instead just widely see her as a foodstuff, trafficked on the global market. It’s imperative for that worldview to change.” In this episode, we welcome Jennifer E. Telesca, Associate Professor of Environmental Governance in the Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment at the Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University, the Netherlands. Her work takes a critical approach to ocean studies, spanning the interests of environmental diplomacy, ethnographies of international law in society, the human–animal relationship, political economy, the politics of extinction, and science and technology in policymaking. She conducts fieldwork at the United Nations and in treaty bodies, diplomatic missions, and other sites scaled supranationally. Red Gold: The Managed Extinction of the Giant Bluefin Tuna (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) is Telesca’s first single-authored book. Its on-the-ground, first-person research has shown just how damned the lives of fishes are in the very world entrusted to care for them in ocean governance. Her second book on hydrothermal vents, tentatively titled, The Midnight Zone, invites readers to honor creatures in all their mysterious and seemingly impossible forms at sites in the deep dark sea—open to regulatory oversight—where scientists believe life on Earth began. Some of the topics we explore in this conversation include how the Giant Bluefin tuna went from being food for the poor to becoming a global delicacy symbolic of luxury, how fish have long been "an object through which global empires have been mediated," Jen's concerns with the scams and blue-washing of eco certifications in seafood, and more. (The musical offering featured in this episode Over It by RVBY MY DEAR. The episode-inspired artwork is by Mi Young.) Green Dreamer would not be possible without direct support from our listeners. Help us keep the show alive by reciprocating a gift of any amount today! GreenDreamer.com/support

In this episode, we welcome Thom van Dooren, a field philosopher and writer. Thom is Deputy Director at the Sydney Environment Institute and teaches at the University of Sydney and the University of Oslo. His current research and writing focus on some of the many philosophical, ethical, cultural, and political issues that arise in the context of species extinctions and human entanglements with threatened species and places. This research works across the disciplines of cultural studies, philosophy, science and technology studies, and related fields. He has explored these themes in depth in three books: Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction (Columbia University Press, 2014), The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds (Columbia University Press, 2019), and A World in a Shell: Snail Stories for a Time of Extinctions (MIT Press, 2022). (The musical offering featured in this episode Hummingbird by Lea Thomas. The episode-inspired artwork is by Haruka Aoki.) Green Dreamer would not be possible without direct support from our listeners. Help us keep the show alive by reciprocating a gift of any amount today! GreenDreamer.com/support

In this episode, we welcome Rebecca Giggs, an award-winning author from Perth, Australia. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Emergence, the New York Times Magazine, Granta, and in anthologies including Best Australian Essays, and Best Australian Science Writing. Rebecca’s nonfiction focuses on how people feel towards animals in a time of technological and ecological change. Rebecca’s debut book is Fathoms: The World in the Whale. Some of the topics we explore include how whaling accelerated and shaped the historical process of industrialization, what impacts various industrial activities have had on whale songs and cultures, the critical role of migratory species, such as the Bogong moth, on enriching the habitats that they pass through, and more. (The musical offering featured in this episode is Eye of The Storm by Ali Dineen. The episode-inspired artwork is by Lucy Haslam.) Green Dreamer would not be possible without direct support from our listeners. Help us keep the show alive by reciprocating a gift of any amount today! GreenDreamer.com/support

“One of the introductions to Counseling Psychology teaches the Freudian concept of neutrality—when the patient’s social identity, when politics leave the door and you start treatment. But if we leave out identity, if we leave out the very sources as to why my client is sick in the first place, then I don’t see why this is not a cycle.” In this episode, we welcome Gabes Torres, a therapist, organizer, and artist who was born and raised in the Philippines. Her work focuses on imperialism and its vast impact our collective mental health. She has an MA in Theology & Culture, and Counseling Psychology; both graduate degrees were accomplished in Seattle, the city where she organized with abolitionist and anti-imperialist groups at a local, grassroots level. In her clinical practice, Gabes works primarily with women, femmes, and/or trans patients of the global majority, and she is a mentor to therapists, organizers, artists, and culture workers around the world. Some of the topics we explore include the lasting impacts of intergenerational trauma, the troubles of over-pathologizing and arbitrary pathologizing, dreams of a world where therapy is no longer needed, and more. (The musical offering featured in this episode is The Witness by Rowan Rain. The episode-inspired artwork is by Fernanda Peralta.) Green Dreamer would not be possible without direct support from our listeners. Help us keep the show alive by reciprocating a gift of any amount today! GreenDreamer.com/support

“Where our power comes from actually is in that space between the 'I' and the 'you'—that shared space. If we could tap into that, if we can find ways of working together, to form what I called 'shared agency,' then we can actually gain a lot of power to affect change.” In this episode, we welcome Min Hyoung Song, a Professor of English and the Director of the Asian American Studies Program at Boston College, as well as a steering committee member of Environmental Studies and an affiliated faculty member of African and African Diaspora Studies. He is the author of three books: Climate Lyricism (Duke, 2022), The Children of 1965: On Writing, and Not Writing, as an Asian American (Duke, 2013) and Strange Future: Pessimism and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots (Duke, 2005).  (The musical offering featured in this episode Power by India Blue. The episode-inspired artwork is by Mi Young.) Green Dreamer would not be possible without direct support from our listeners. Help us keep the show alive by reciprocating a gift of any amount today! GreenDreamer.com/support

“All of these imaginings visually, as if we were in a spaceship and looking down on the Earth—whoever that we is, which is super problematic with the notion of the Anthropocene—safely above, looking at the mess we’ve created... And no. With Trans-corporeality, our bodies are already the Anthropocene.” In this episode, we welcome Professor Stacy Alaimo, Professor of English and Core Faculty Member in Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon. She is the author of Undomesticated Ground: Recasting Nature as Feminist Space (2000); Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self (2010); and Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times (2016). Alaimo is currently writing a book entitled Deep Blue Ecologies: Science, Aesthetics, and the Creatures of the Abyss. Her work explores the intersections between literary, artistic, political, and philosophical approaches to environmentalism along with the practices and experiences of everyday life. She loves diving and snorkeling, hiking, paddling, and creating habitat gardens with native plants. (The musical offering featured in this episode Eye of The Storm by Ali Dineen. The episode-inspired artwork is by Lucy Haslam.) Green Dreamer would not be possible without direct support from our listeners. Help us keep the show alive by reciprocating a gift of any amount today! GreenDreamer.com/support

“For every $1 of aid Africa gets, $24 is taken out. We have to address something deeper, something more systemic, but we don’t want to talk about that. We want to talk about food waste, composting. Those are treating the symptoms of the disease, not the root. ” In this episode, we revisit our past conversation with Loren Cardeli, the co-founder and Executive Director of A Growing Culture, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, advancing a culture of farmer autonomy and agroecological innovation. A Growing Culture is a farmer-centric organization that believes the key to sustainability lies in returning small-scale farmers back to the forefront of agriculture. As part of this growing movement, Loren and his colleagues promote farmer-led research, extension, and outreach, helping to create sustainable, self-driving futures. (The musical offering featured in this episode Only the Truth by Johanna Warren.) Green Dreamer would not be possible without direct support from our listeners. Help us keep the show alive by reciprocating a gift of any amount today! GreenDreamer.com/support

“When it comes to refrigeration, so many of us have just come to accept that that’s how things are done. But I think in the food sovereignty conversation, those dependencies can sometimes be overlooked when we’re talking about what it means to become sovereign.” In this episode, we welcome Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart (Kanaka Maoli), who is Assistant Professor of Native and Indigenous Studies at Yale University. An interdisciplinary scholar, she researches and teaches on issues of settler colonialism, environment, and Indigenous sovereignty. Her first book, Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment is a recipient of the press’s Scholars of Color First Book Award. Some of the topics we explore in this conversation include the symbolism of ice and shaved ice in Hawai’i, the establishment of the cold chain as an integral part of the global food system, provocations about the anthropocentric desire to control ambient temperatures, and more. (The musical offering featured in this episode Tear Down The Wall by Forest Veil. The episode-inspired artwork is by Haruka Aoki.) Green Dreamer would not be possible without direct support from our listeners. Help us keep the show alive by reciprocating a gift of any amount today! GreenDreamer.com/support

“Our economies globally have forced the Global South to be commodity-driven, export countries, with powerful multinationals. [The] profits that come from the exploitation of countries in the Global South flow to the Global North. As I say, imperialism is as alive today as it was then.” In this episode, we welcome Asad Rehman, the Executive Director of the radical anti-poverty and social justice organisation War on Want. Asad is a leading climate justice activist whose work has helped to reframe the climate crisis as a crisis of neoliberal capitalism, inequality, and racism. Asad has led climate justice groups inside the UNFCCC process, and was co-founder of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice, is currently coordinator of the Global Green New Deal Project and was also one of the founders of the COP26 Coalition. Over the last 35 years, he has worked with many social movements both globally and nationally including the anti-racist movement, the alter-globalisation movement, and the anti-war movement. (The musical offering featured in this episode Tear Down The Wall by Forest Veil. The episode-inspired artwork is by Carolina Altavilla.) Green Dreamer would not be possible without direct support from our listeners. Help us keep the show alive by reciprocating a gift of any amount today! GreenDreamer.com/support