Provincial politics. There, I said them — two of the most boring words in the English language.

There’s no denying it. Provincial elections fail to capture the imaginations of citizens the way national or even international elections do.

Case in point: in the last B.C. provincial election, just 55 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot — 13 per cent fewer than voted in the last federal election.

I get it: most of us are just trying to pay the bills, put dinner on the table and make sure the kids get to soccer practice. There’s not exactly a whole lot of time (or energy) left to monitor several different levels of politics.

Yet Canadians have been captivated by the train wreck that’s been unfolding south of the border for the last six months — even though there ain’t much we can do about another country’s state of affairs.

So if you give a shit about the state of the world, now’s as good a time as any to focus on what you can change. If you’re a British Columbian, you’ve got a golden opportunity to make your mark in just one week from today.

In Canada, the provinces are responsible for managing things like health care, education, housing and natural resources — so, snooze-worthy or not, provincial politics have a major influence over our day-to-day lives.

Here are our Top 5 reasons to give a shit about the B.C. election.

1) Because It’s a Referendum on Big Money in Politics

When the New York Times devotes an entire article to how corrupt your province’s politics have become, calling it the ‘wild west’ of political cash, it’s time to sit up and pay attention.

Here are the facts: unlike many other provinces, B.C. has no limits on political donations. Anyone, including foreigners and foreign companies, can give as much moola as they want to political parties in our province.

A Globe and Mail investigation this spring found lobbyists breaking one of the few rules B.C. has in place by donating to the B.C. Liberals under their own names, while being reimbursed by companies, thus concealing the true source of the money.

An RCMP investigation is now underway into the practice. Meanwhile, the B.C. Liberals (who are not affiliated with the federal Liberal party and are actually strongly aligned with the federal Conservative party) announced they would return $93,000 in prohibited donations.

Thanks to these lax laws, the Liberals raised $12.6 million in 2016 — more than any other provincial party in power. The B.C. NDP meanwhile raised $6.2 million in 2016.

Despite the fact 86 per cent of British Columbians want to see big money banned from politics, the Liberals have defeated six NDP bills to ban big money in politics.

When asked during the televised leaders’ debate about how she’d regain British Columbians’ trust after the donations scandal, Clark said: “I think the thing that matters most to British Columbians is jobs.”

If corruption matters to you, this is your chance to get big money out of politics.  Both the NDP and the Greens have promised to ban corporate and union donations if elected.

2) Two Words: ‘Legalized Bribery’

In a system that’s been called ‘legalized bribery,’ Premier Christy Clark has been receiving an annual stipend of up to $50,000 from her party, financed by political contributions. This is in addition to her $195,000 a year salary paid for by taxpayers.

“No elected official in the U.S. is allowed to get a stipend; that would be bribery,” said Dan Levin, a New York Times reporter covering Canada. “I lived in China for seven-and-a-half years; in China or Russia this would just be called ‘corruption’ or ‘nepotism.’ But here, it’s just ‘legal.’ ”

That salary top-up led two groups to file a court challenge to overturn the government’s decision on Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline due to alleged conflicts of interest between the premier and project proponents, who have given $560,000 in political contributions over six years to the Liberal party.

A week after the New York Times turned its glaring spotlight on B.C., Clark finally announced she’ll stop the controversial salary top-up. But the B.C. Liberals still haven’t made any commitment to get big money out of politics.

While Clark has been raking in close to $250,000 a year, during the 16-year tenure of the B.C. Liberals, the cost of living for ordinary British Columbians has skyrocketed — from housing and child care to health care premiums, Hydro bills and ICBC rates.

Entire campaigns have popped up to stop the squeeze on younger British Columbians and fight for $10 a day childcare. If the ability for working class people to get by matters to you, cast a ballot, mmmmkay?

3) Because The Largest Mining Disaster in Canadian History Went Unpunished

When a dam broke at the Mount Polley mine in August 2014, it unleashed a four-square-kilometre lake full of mining waste into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake, a source of drinking water and major spawning grounds for sockeye salmon.

You might be thinking: that sounds really shitty, but surely it’s not the government’s fault?

Oh how we wish that were the case. But a two-year investigation by B.C.’s auditor general found that compliance and enforcement expectations were not met after a “decade of neglect.”

The report said that to reduce the risk of “unfortunate and preventable incidents like Mount Polley,”compliance and enforcement should be separated from the Ministry of Energy and Mines Ministry because the ministry’s role to promote mining development creates an “irreconcilable conflict.”

But guess what? The government ignored that recommendation and continues business as usual. In fact, the government approved another mine with a massive tailings pond just like the one at Mount Polley, even though an expert panel said to stop doing that. Alaskans downstream are so worried about their salmon rivers that they’re practically begging the B.C. government to get its shit together.

Meanwhile, Mount Polley and its parent company Imperial Metals got off without a single fine or criminal charge for the largest mining accident in Canadian history.

To add insult to injury, British Columbians have been left on the hook for millions of dollars of clean-up bills for the Mount Polley spill.

And now, just days before the writ dropped, the B.C. government approved a permit for Mount Polley to discharge mining waste directly into Quesnel Lake. Seriously.

You’d almost think there was some corruption at play or something.

P.S. Mount Polley and its parent company Imperial Metals have donated more than $200,000 to the B.C. Liberals since 2005.

4) Because We’re Still Killing Grizzly Bears for Trophies

Since we’re on the topic of totally screwed up things that B.C. allows because of unlimited political donations, let’s talk about grizzly bears. About 300 of them will be killed this year so that hunters can hang their heads on the wall at home.

Many grizzlies will be killed in B.C.’s provincial parks and protected areas. Many will be females. This will happen despite the fact 90 per cent of British Columbians want to see trophy hunting banned.

Photo: Dogwood

Why? Money talks yet again.

Guide outfitters — who can earn as much as $20,000 for helping a foreign hunter bag a grizzly bear — have donated nearly $62,000 to the B.C. Liberals since 2005.

Fun fact: a 2012 study by Stanford University in conjunction with the Center for Responsible Travel found that bear viewing groups in the Great Bear Rainforest generated more than 12 times more in visitor spending than bear hunting.

Most recently, wealthy hunting society Safari Club International donated $60,000 to the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C., bragging in a since-removed Facebook post about “working … to prevent the NDP from getting elected.”

The NDP have vowed to end the trophy hunt, as have the Green Party.

Safari Club International spent nearly a million dollars lobbying in the U.S. last year, including on legislation related to species such as elephants, wolves and polar bears. Handy fact: One of their members was responsible for killing Cecil the Lion.

Ahem, did we mention this is your chance to get big money out of politics?

5) Because We’re Losing Our Place in the World

There was a while there when B.C. was praised for being a leader in tackling climate change, while maintaining one of the strongest economies in Canada. That time is over.

A recent L.A. Times piece focused on B.C.’s new “embrace of fossil fuels.”

“Now, however, Canada’s West Coast is striving toward a very different kind of cutting edge: British Columbia is positioning itself to become a global leader in exporting fossil fuels, with plans to nearly triple crude oil exports through a controversial new pipeline and vastly expand production of liquefied natural gas to be sold in Asia,” read a recent piece in the Los Angeles Times.

Premier Christy Clark has been a big pusher of any and all fossil fuel development, including a stunning about-face on Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain oil pipeline. Meanwhile, she decided to ignore the recommendations of her expert panel on climate change.

It’s gotten so bad that even former B.C. Liberal premier Gordon Campbell —who’s given precious few interviews — had some choice words for B.C. in the Los Angeles Times article.

“They still say that they take pride in having a revenue-neutral carbon tax,” Campbell said. “If you do, then what are the next steps you take? The journey’s not done. We started it with some good, strong policies that I would have liked to see carry on. But it’s up to the current elected leaders. There are leaders and there are followers.”

Even if climate change isn’t No. 1 on your priority list, chances are you don’t want B.C. to become a laggard on the global climate file just as the world accelerates toward a clean energy economy.

This no-holds-barred approach to natural resources has antagonized B.C.’s First Nations, who are calling on their friends and allies to vote for anyone but Clark.

“The Clark government has virtually neglected the people of British Columbia in her obsessive pursuit of large-scale resource development projects,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip at a press conference this week.

Grievances include the B.C. Liberals’ continued musings about LNG, even though the market appears to be dead, and their bull-headed approach to the Site C dam, which Phillip described as a “sleazy, political make-work project to shore up the failings B.C. Jobs program.”

Why is Clark so enthusiastic about fossil fuel exports? It could have something to do with the 22,000 meetings her government has had with fossil fuel lobbyists since 2010. Or with the roughly $4 million in donations her party has received from oil and gas companies since 2008. Just sayin’.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

When Donald Trump held his first news conference this month following his election as U.S. president, observers worldwide decried his shameless attack on the media and his critics.

In an onslaught against the press, Trump labelled CNN “terrible” and “fake news,” lambasted the digital-media powerhouse BuzzFeed as a “failing pile of garbage,” then turned his sights on the BBC, calling the news outlet, “another beauty,” and refusing to answer a reporter’s questions.

Could something similar ever happen in Canada? You bet it could.

In B.C., a slightly abridged version of Trump’s scorched-earth offensive against the media and his critics is already underway, led by BC Hydro, with disquieting consequences for the principles of freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

BC Hydro’s attacks on the media and critics centre on the $8.8-billion Site C dam, which the government has vowed to push past the “point of no return,” in the words of Premier Christy Clark, before voters head to the polls in May, even though there is compelling evidence that B.C. doesn’t need Site C’s electricity and Clark still searches for a buyer for the dam’s power.

The Premier’s Office and B.C. Energy Minister Bill Bennett have also been directly involved in the coordinated offensive, a strong indication of BC Hydro’s waning independence and waxing politicization.

From the New York Times and DeSmog Canada to Amnesty International and the Royal Society of Canada, BC Hydro’s reaction to critical Site C articles and reports has become increasingly inappropriate over the past eight months as the provincial election draws near and the Liberal party seeks a fifth term in office.

The reactions reached new fervour this month when BC Hydro issued a rant of a news release maligning a Times story on Site C, even going so far as to question the reporter’s personal motives. Bennett, saying the press release didn’t go nearly far enough, called the reporter “not fair” and “not professional.”

Bennett rails against the press calling a reporter “not fair” & “not professional” https://t.co/YDBvMcvvUu #bcpoli #cdnpoli #SiteC #bcelxn17 pic.twitter.com/gRFrRO2xpe

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 1, 2017

That followed other BC Hydro news releases questioning the content of an Amnesty report critical of Site C and the integrity of an unrelated statement from the Royal Society calling for an immediate halt to the dam, which the society said would cause more ecological damage than any project ever examined in the history of Canada’s environmental assessment act.

A Site C public opinion poll conducted by Insights West, according to a different BC Hydro press release, was “not likely to be an accurate reflection of public opinion,” while an article in Business in Vancouver was labelled as just plain “wrong.”

Even a Province opinion piece I wrote about Site C came under fire when BC Hydro issued a news release, containing text approved by Clark’s office, trying to discredit the piece, which questioned BC Hydro’s civil lawsuit against Peace Valley farmers and First Nations members who are trying to stop Site C, accusing them of serious charges such as “conspiracy” and seeking financial damages from them. Notably, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association calls the ongoing suit a matter of “grave concern” because of its potential to put a chill on freedom of expression.

For former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen, who said Site C was a “white elephant” that would cause hydro bills in B.C., already scheduled for a 28-per-cent increase over five years, to climb to the point where they would be “devastating,” BC Hydro also recently brandished some Trump-style behaviour.

The Crown corporation suggested in its news release about The Times story that Eliesen, a highly respected professional who was also CEO of Ontario Hydro and the chairman of Manitoba Hydro, was 20 years out of date, while lambasting the newspaper for not including a quote from BC Hydro’s current CEO — an ironic quibble considering that BC Hydro, like Trump, cherry-picks which lines of inquiry it will respond to from reporters and which it pointedly chooses to ignore.

The Times reporter, after writing a second story, this one calling B.C. the “Wild West” of political cash, tweeted that B.C. is like a Banana Republic.

Banana Republic or Granola Republic, we all have a stake in these continuing attacks and should be concerned about our provincial government’s creeping Trump-style treatment of the media and Site C critics.

That rabbit hole south of the border should be a cautionary tale, not a subterranean destination for B.C.

Image: Worker camp construction for the Site C dam. Photo: Garth Lenz/DeSmog Canada

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The Public Accountability Initiative (PAI) has published a timely "back to school" report concluding that "frackademia" is alive and well at U.S. universities. 

While only focusing on the people and money behind five recent studies, PAI's report sits within a much broader universe of research in its Frackademia Guide. The new report serves as an update of its February 2015 report titled, "Frackademia in Depth," a title poking fun at hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") front group Energy in Depth (which did not react kindly to its report).

As PAI points out in the new report's introduction, the results of many recent science studies (some funded by the industry) have tarnished the reputation the industry spends so much money aiming to keep shiny. These include studies on fracking's climate impacts and health impacts, environmental justice issues associated with fracking, among others.

Given that backdrop, the oil and gas industry has swept in and funded fresh studies whose outcomes were more favorable — aka "frackademia" — on topics ranging from fracking's groundwater impacts, environmental impacts and economics. 

Rick Berman, Tim Considine

Among the most compelling findings in the PAI investigation is that Rick "Dr. Evil" Berman, infamous for creating industry-funded front groups in many policy arenas via his consulting company Berman & Company, has gotten into the frackademia game.

The Berman connection becomes clear when investigating the men behind the curtain of a study published in September 2014 titled, “Economic and Environmental Impacts of Oil and Gas Development Offshore the Delmarva, Carolinas, and Georgia,” which makes the case for offshore drilling in the Atlantic. As PAI explained, it was funded by Interstate Policy Alliance, "a project of the Employment Policies Institute."

What's Employment Policies Institute? A Berman & Company front group.  

"Though Berman and Company does not disclose the identities of its clients, the firm and its network of front groups have recently begun attacking fracking opponents and climate change regulations, suggesting it has been retained by the oil and gas industry," explained PAI.

view this map on LittleSis

Just as important as Berman, in this case, was the author: Timothy Considine. Considine has been embroiled in other frackademia scandals, including a 2010 study eventually retracted and reissued by Penn State University after it was revealed that he didn't disclose its funder, the Marcellus Shale Coalition lobbying organization.

He's actually featured twice in the PAI report. The other recent Considine frackademia example came in the form of a study titled, “The Economics Impacts of the Proposed Natural Gas Severance Tax in Pennsylvania," funded by the American Petroleum Institute. 

That report predicted brutal impacts for Pennsylvania's economy if its legislature adopts a severance tax for those fracking in the state's Marcellus Shale. 

Harvard, Syracuse

Harvard Business School and Syracuse University also feature prominently in PAI's report. The Harvard Business School example, in particular, serves as almost a perfect case study of how frackademia works in action. 

“America’s Unconventional Energy Opportunity,” the title of Harvard's report published jointly with Boston Consulting Group in June 2015, was featured in an opinion article by The New York Times writer David Brooks and in an uncritical article distributed to newspaper wires worldwide by Reuters.  

Like a prominent 2013 Environmental Defense Fund-convened study on the climate change impacts of fracking, the steering committee of the Harvard study was a who's-who of people with industry ties. 

Image Credit: Public Accountability Initiative

As PAI pointed out, co-author "David Gee, a [Boston Consulting Group] managing partner, has worked for the energy industry for more than 30 years, with stints at Baker Hughes, PG&E, and AES Corporation."

Another co-author not mentioned in PAI's report is Michael Porter, a faculty member of the Harvard Business School and formerly of the Monitor Group, a prominent consulting firm that went out of business in November 2012. Monitor Group has been involved in undisclosed pay-for-play before, conducting de facto shadow public relations work for former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.  

Energy in Depth also stars in PAI's report in the form of a Syracuse University study on fracking and groundwater contamination that served as a counter of sorts to earlier Duke University fracking groundwater contamination studies. 

That study was promoted by both EID and Natural Gas Now, the latter often featuring the work of Tom Shepstone, a former EID employee and current industry consultant. As it turns out, the study was covertly funded by Chesapeake Energy, though the co-authors claimed they had “no competing financial interest” in any entities potentially impacted by the study's results. 

Lead author Donald Siegel "had failed to disclose that, in addition to providing the data upon which his conclusions were based, oil and gas driller Chesapeake Energy had also funded the study and paid Siegel directly," wrote PAI.

"Further, one of Siegel’s co-authors, Bert Smith, is a former Chesapeake employee who now works for Enviro Clean, a firm that consults for Chesapeake Energy. While Smith’s employment at Enviro Clean was noted when the study was published, the fact that his employer works for Chesapeake Energy was not."

On at least one instance, PAI pointed out, Siegel actually wrote an article on EID's website.

Tobacco, Climate Denier Playbook

As highlighted many times in the report, journalists often take press releases from universities and write stories about these studies without following the money.

"Since the tobacco industry pioneered the use of compromised scientists to sow doubt about the harmful effects of smoking, corporations have employed a complex of industry-funded academic institutes, public relations outfits, lobbying firms, and independent consultants to provide seemingly independent support for their lines of business," explained PAI.

PAI has done a great public service by naming names and doing the work journalists all too often fail to do to reveal conflicts of interest.  

Photo Credit: Jannis Tobias Werner | Shutterstock

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The public debate over how to address climate change has been hindered in no small part by the media’s refusal to properly identify climate deniers, according to an open letter penned by fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry titled “Deniers are not Skeptics.”

Now, campaign group Forecast the Facts is making an open appeal to the media to accurately label climate deniers, enabling supporters of the CSI effort to co-sign the letter, which so far has garnered over 20,000 signatures.

The open letter, released last month, was signed by nearly 50 scientists and skeptics, including physicist Mark Boslough, science writer Ann Druyan, and Bill Nye the Science Guy, who say that public understanding of global warming science has been “confused” because of the misuse of the term “skeptic.”

“As scientific skeptics, we are well aware of political efforts to undermine climate science by those who deny reality but do not engage in scientific research or consider evidence that their deeply held opinions are wrong,” they wrote. “The most appropriate word to describe the behavior of those individuals is ‘denial.’ Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics are deniers. But virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves as skeptics. By perpetrating this misnomer, journalists have granted undeserved credibility to those who reject science and scientific inquiry.”

The letter singles out Republican Senator James Inhofe, the new Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee even though he once infamously called global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” He believes climate change is impossible because “God’s still up there.”

Sen. Inhofe is the type of climate change denier who has repeatedly benefited from being characterized as a “skeptic” in mainstream media outlets like the New York Times and NPR. You can read the full letter below.

Forecast the Facts picked up where the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry left off, inviting its supporters and anyone else concerned about the state of the climate debate to publicly co-sign the letter to the media, “Climate deniers are not skeptics.”

Of course, the fact that climate denial is regularly conflated with skepticism is no accident, as has been documented elsewhere, perhaps most notably in Erik Conway and Naomi Oreskes’ must-read book Merchants of Doubt, which examines industry-funded campaigns to mislead the public on issues ranging from tobacco smoke to acid rain and global warming in the service of free market fundamentalism.

By cloaking their anti-scientific arguments in the mantle of skepticism rather than denialism, climate deniers are simply taking a page from the Big Tobacco playbook. Isn't it time the media stop falling for it all over again?

Here’s the full open letter from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry:

Deniers are not Skeptics

December 5, 2014

Public discussion of scientific topics such as global warming is confused by misuse of the term “skeptic.” The Nov 10, 2014, New York Times article “Republicans Vow to Fight EPA and Approve Keystone Pipeline” referred to Sen. James Inhofe as “a prominent skeptic of climate change.” Two days later Scott Horsley of NPR’s Morning Edition called him “one of the leading climate change deniers in Congress.” These are not equivalent statements.

As Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, we are concerned that the words “skeptic” and “denier” have been conflated by the popular media. Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the a priorirejection of ideas without objective consideration.

Real skepticism is summed up by a quote popularized by Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Inhofe’s belief that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” is an extraordinary claim indeed. He has never been able to provide evidence for this vast alleged conspiracy. That alone should disqualify him from using the title “skeptic.”

As scientific skeptics, we are well aware of political efforts to undermine climate science by those who deny reality but do not engage in scientific research or consider evidence that their deeply held opinions are wrong. The most appropriate word to describe the behavior of those individuals is “denial.” Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics are deniers. But virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves as skeptics. By perpetrating this misnomer, journalists have granted undeserved credibility to those who reject science and scientific inquiry.

We are skeptics who have devoted much of our careers to practicing and promoting scientific skepticism. We ask that journalists use more care when reporting on those who reject climate science, and hold to the principles of truth in labeling. Please stop using the word “skeptic” to describe deniers.

Mark Boslough, Physicist

David Morrison, Director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, at the SETI Institute

Bill Nye, CEO the Planetary Society

Ann Druyan, Writer/producer; CEO, Cosmos Studios

Ken Frazier, Editor, Skeptical Inquirer

Barry Karr, Exec Director, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

Amardeo Sarma, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Executive Council, Chairman GWUP (Germany)

Sir Harold Kroto, Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Ronald A. Lindsay, President & CEO Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and Center for Inquiry

Kenneth R. Miller, Professor of Biology, Brown University

Christopher C. French, Dept of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London

Daniel C. Dennett, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University

Massimo Pigliucci, Professor of Philosophy at CUNY-City College

Douglas Hofstadter, Director, The Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University

Stephen Barrett, Co-founder of the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), and the webmaster of Quackwatch

Scott O. Lilienfeld, Professor, Department of Psychology, Emory University

Terence Hines, Dept of Psychology, Pace University

James Randi, President James Randi Educational Foundation

Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer and Director of the Center for SETI Research

Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

Henri Broch, Physicist, Emeritus, University Nice Sophia Antipolis, France

Eugenie C. Scott, Chair, Advisory Council, National Center for Science Education

Edzard Ernst, Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, University of Exeter, UK

Indre Viskontas, Cognitive Neuroscientist, Host Inquiring Minds Podcast

David J. Helfand, Professor of Astronomy, Columbia University

Mario Mendez-Acosta, Journalist, Science Writer, Mexico City

Cornelis de Jager, Astrophysicist, Past President, International Council for Science

Sanal Edamaruku, President, Rationalist International

Loren Pankratz, Psychologist, Portland VA Medical Center, Retired

Sandra Blakeslee, Science Writer

Benjamin Radford, Deputy Editor of the Skeptical Inquirer Magazine

David Thomas, Physicist and Mathematician

Stuart D. Jordan, NASA Astrophysicist, Emeritus

David H. Gorski, Cancer Surgeon, Wayne State University School of Medicine

Anthony R. Pratkanis, Professor of Psychology, UC @Santa Cruz

Jan Willem Nienhuys, Mathematician, Waalre, The Netherlands

Susan Blackmore, Psychologist, Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth

Ken Feder, Anthropology, Central Connecticut State University

Jill Tarter, Bernard M. Oliver Chair, SETI Institute

Richard Saunders, JREF Million Dollar Challenge Committee, Producer – The Skeptic Zone Podcast

Jay Pasachoff, Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy, Williams College

Lawrence M. Krauss, Director, The ASU Origins Project, Arizona State University

Barbara Forrest, Philosophy, Southeastern Louisiana University

Kimball Atwood, Physician, Newton, MA

James Alcock, Psychologist, Glendon College, York University, Toronto, Canada

Massimo Polidoro, Science writer, author, Executive Director CICAP, Italy

E.C. Krupp, Director, Griffith Observatory

Dick Smith, Film Producer, Publisher, Australia

CSI Consultants

Luis Alfonso Gámez, journalist, the Magonia blog, Spain

Felix Ares de Blas, Professor of Computer Science, Univ. of Basque, Spain

Image Credit: alphaspirit / ShutterStock.com

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.