The Response Shareable

Anyone who's been in a disaster and experienced the initial government or major nonprofit response may have noticed that there's a lot of waste involved. From the thousands of single-use water bottles and throw-away medical supplies to the constant churning of diesel and gas-powered generators, there’s just really no other option. But what if there was? Would it be adopted? How could these large disaster response institutions even know that things could be done differently?
That’s where Footprint Project comes in. Since 2017 they've been proving that it's possible to respond cleaner and build back greener by deploying 200+ kW of mobile solar and 600+ kWh of mobile battery storage on more than 20 disaster response and recovery missions, to provide emergency clean power access to over 28,000 people in some of the hardest hit communities following disasters.
Today on the show, we’ve brought on Footprint Project’s Operations Director, Will Heegaard, who shares the genesis stories for how he got involved in disaster response work and the impetus behind launching the organization. He also unpacks the importance of building resilient communities and the role he feels that state agencies should play in disaster relief.
And for those listeners who just completed our Emergency Battery Network Co-Lab (or are planning to check out the course recordings and Toolkit that are soon to be on our website), stick around for the full conversation to hear Will’s advice on how to build power in your community.
Resources:
Footprint Project Episode credits:
Hosted and co-produced by Tom Llewellyn Presented, edited, and co-produced by Robert Raymond Theme Music by Cultivate Beats Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.
Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in reaching new people who may otherwise not hear about this show.
The Response is published by Shareable.

On today’s show we’re continuing our ongoing Disaster Dispatch series with a deep dive into the Maui wildfires. Earlier this month a series of wind-driven wildfires in Hawaii, predominantly in Maui, led to widespread devastation and destruction, killing at least 115 people and leaving 850 others missing in the town of Lāhainā. These numbers are estimated to actually be much higher as the search to find and identify victims remains painstakingly slow. 
To tell us more about what happened and what the community response has been, we’ve brought on Nicole Huguenin. Nicole is based in Maui and is the co-lead of Maui Rapid Response, an ahupua’a-based citizen disaster response team that’s part of a much broader community response ecosystem working all across the island to provide relief and mutual aid to residents of Maui. 
Resources:
Maui Rapid Response Maui Rapd Response on Instagram Help Maui Rise Donation Google Doc ʻĀina Momona Kāko'o Haleakalā
Tamara Paltin
Mauna Medic Healers Hui Kanaeokana Episode credits:
Hosted, produced, and edited by Robert Raymond Presented by Tom Llewellyn Theme Music by Cultivate Beats Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.
Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in reaching new people who may otherwise not hear about this show.
The Response is published by Shareable.

This summer has truly turned out to be a hot labor summer, with a number of high-profile labor actions stretching across industries and across the country, from the streets of Hollywood to the shop floors at UPS — things are heating up. 
With that said, there is a story that hasn’t hit headlines in the same way as some of these other actions and confrontations. And that’s the story of Anchor Brewery in San Francisco. You might have seen their Anchor Steam beer in the beer aisle before, or heard about their unionization campaign that took place in 2019 after this locally beloved brewery was bought by a giant beer conglomerate, Sapporo. That unionization campaign was successful, but recently, Sapporo abruptly, and controversially, closed Anchor Brewing down. Now, some of the workers at Anchor who don’t want to see this centuries-old institution stripped for parts, want to turn the brewery into a worker-owned cooperative.
This is really a sort of David and Goliath story, and to tell it, we’ve brought on Pedro Mancilla, who led the Anchor Brewery tour program, is a member of the ILWU Local 6 Warehouse Union, and is part of the team working on the cooperativization campaign. 
Pedro has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of beer and beer history, and he begins by giving us a sort of virtual tour of the San Francisco brewery’s history and also a bit of San Francisco labor history. He then talks about the union, the struggles with Sapporo, the effort to convert Anchor into a worker cooperative, and also, how local Bay Area beer producers and enjoyers are coming together in an act of true solidarity to stand behind the workers that have been the backbone of this historic brewery. 
Resources:
Anchor Brewing Union Stand Together to Save Anchor Brewing Company! Solidarity Ale Release at Enterprise Brewing in San Francisco Project Equity Episode credits:
Hosted, produced, and edited by Robert Raymond Presented by Tom Llewellyn Theme Music by Cultivate Beats Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.
Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in reaching new people who may otherwise not hear about this show.
The Response is published by Shareable.

All across the globe, temperatures are rising, and thanks to the most recent report published by the International Panel on Climate Change and recent U.N. projections, we know that even if we do make sweeping cuts to emissions, we’re still on course for a catastrophic temperature rise of 2.7 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. That means, the record-breaking floods, droughts, storms, wildfires, and heatwaves we’re currently seeing, or for many of us, directly experiencing, are just the beginning. Global warming is not just some distant thing to worry about in the future — it’s here. Right now.
Although cataclysmic events like hurricanes and wildfires tend to monopolize most of the headlines on climate change, as paltry as it is to begin with, climate news coverage hardly ever focuses on the less flashy impacts. Things like heatwaves, for example, might draw some attention if they’re record-shattering — but oftentimes, the impacts of long-lasting higher temperatures are not covered in any depth by mainstream news outlets.
In this episode of The Response, we’re going to focus on an issue that isn’t talked about hardly enough: energy poverty. When temperatures rise to the point where they become dangerous, what happens to people who can’t escape the heat? As temperatures continue to soar and extreme heatwaves become the norm, a lack of resources to stay cool — so, having access to things like air conditioning, for example, — is a huge issue across the world. This is especially true in southern Europe, a region that experienced a series of record-breaking, climate-fueled heatwaves this past summer.
Episode credits:
Written, produced, and edited by Robert Raymond Narrated by Tom Llewellyn Theme Music by Cultivate Beats Additional music by Belong, Fugazi, and Chris Zabriskie Cover illustration by Kane Lynch This episode features:
Eleni Myrivili, Chief Heat Officer for the City of Athens (the first person to hold this title – recently featured in New York Times). Lidija Živčič is the senior expert at the FOCUS Association for Sustainable Development and a coordinator at EmpowerMed. Mònica Guiteras, a member of the Alliance Against Energy Poverty in Catalonia, and Engineers Without Borders.   Martha Myers, energy poverty campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe and the coordinator of the Right to Energy Coalition. Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.
Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in reaching new people who may otherwise not hear about this show.
The Response is published by Shareable.

On our last show, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Land Back with David Cobb — specifically, we discussed moving the idea of land back from a metaphor to a reality, by focusing on a specific case in northern California where the city of Eureka actually gave 200 acres of land back to its original stewards, the Wiyot tribe. 
On today's episode, we're going to continue the conversation, and, in a way, pull back from the specific policy examples of land back and look at it as an idea again, specifically, as a revolutionary ideological framework that exists as a part of Marxist thought, a continuation of Marxism-Leninism — what has been called decolonial Marxism.
To do this, we've brought on Lakota activist and political educator Sungmanitu Bluebird. Sungmanitu grew up in both Detroit and on Pine Ridge reservation and is currently based in Michigan's upper peninsula. 
Sungmanitu’s work synthesizes Marxism with Indigenous knowledge and decolonial Marxist theory and practice. They are a former member of the Red Nation, a mutual aid movement builder, and an organizer with the Chunka Luta Network, a project meant to push decolonial Marxism-Leninism as described by the Guyanese Marxist academic, writer, and educator, Walter Rodney.
Resources:
Chunka Luta Network Land Back: A Yellowhead Institute Red Paper Decolonial Marxism:Essays from the Pan-African Revolution by Walter Rodney Questions about the LandBack movement, answered, High Country News Absolutely epic: Blackfeet release wild buffalo on tribal land, Independent Record This new wildlife sanctuary will be unlike any other part of the U.S. — and it’s 6 times the size of Yosemite National Park, The Cool Down Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.
Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in reaching new people who may otherwise not hear about this show.
The Response is published by Shareable.

The idea of Land Back — a growing movement to return occupied land to the Indigenous people that it rightfully belongs to, often exists as a metaphor for us. It can feel like the discussion around land theft and genocide by settler-colonists in the United States is often limited to land acknowledgments or statements of solidarity — both of which are important. But what about the most important element in these discussions — actually giving the land back? 
Today on the show, we’ve brought on David Cobb, a ‘people’s lawyer,’ self-proclaimed revolutionary, and advancement manager for the Wiyot Tribe’s Dishgamu Humboldt Community Land Trust in Northern California.
Who are the Wiyot tribe and what is their history on the land we call Humboldt County? What is the ongoing response to the attempted genocide of this Indigenous community which took place almost two hundred years ago — a horrifying and all-too-common event in the history of the settler colony which is the United States? And how has the city of Eureka worked with the Wiyot tribe to rematriate land — to actually enact the practice and policy of land back, taking it from a metaphor to a reality?
These are just some of the questions we’ll explore in this conversation. And along the way, we’ll touch on community land trusts, the global push for a social and solidarity economy, the People’s Network for Land and Liberation, the reality of end-stage capitalism, and how you can identify and support the Indigenous peoples on the land you inhabit today.  
Resources:
Dishgamu Humboldt Community Land Trust Native Land Digital (find out whose ancestral tribal lands you are living in) The Honor Tax Project Legal Tools for Land Return (from Sustainable Economies Law Center) How to give the land back (Shareable) Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.
Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in reaching new people who may otherwise not hear about this show.
The Response is published by Shareable.