Ajwah Zahid Podcasts

The UN estimated that in 2000 some 1.6 billion people around the world, including many of the world’s poorest, derived at least part of their food, income or medical needs directly from the forest. The Congo rainforest is the second biggest rainforest in the world and has lost more than 600,000 hectares of primary forest in 2020, which is a 9 perce…

On Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, igniting a fire and setting off fears of an explosion. The NTSB found that the accident was “100% preventable” and yet Norfolk Southern, the company responsible, firmly disagrees. Shortly after the derailment, 1,500 to 2,000 residents were told to evacuat…

The transportation sector is one of the largest contributors of GHGs and cars alone contribute to 29% of emissions in the US. The issue of renewable transport has plagued humanity longer than you think and the rise of electric vehicle sales may be part of the solution. Tesla, Toyota, Honda… all companies that have been less than honest with marketi…

A study in the geophysical research letters journal found that summer in the Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes has lengthened, whereas winter has shortened, owing to shift in their onsets and withdrawals, accompanied by shorter spring and autumn. Over the period of 1952–2011, the length of summer increased from 78 to 95 days and that of spring, autu…

As a follow up to our fashion episode, we are providing general tips on the best fabrics to help guide ourselves and our listeners when expanding our wardrobes.By Ajwah Zahid and Alayibo Semenitari

For four years, male sea turtles have been declining in Florida, and a study in Australia confirmed similar findings with 99% of the hatchlings born female, with both linked to rising temperatures. Earlier this year, we breached the planetary limit for hazardous chemicals. There are over 350,000 human-made chemicals on the market with numbers expec…

For every 4,434 metric tons of carbon produced beyond 2020 levels, one person globally will die prematurely due to extreme temperatures, according to an analysis published in Nature Communications. If you then consider the fact that in the first half of 2022, those 10 celebrities’ planes released a staggering 3,376.64 metric tons of carbon emission…

A viral TikTok video of a woman claiming SHEIN nail flakes sent her to the hospital led internet sleuths down a web of contaminants and bad environmental practices that the fashion industry has engaged in for decades. Yoga pants and gym leggings sold by Lululemon and Old Navy contained Perfluoroalkoxy alkanes, PFAS, according to testing done by con…

From June through August, Pakistan has received 190 percent of its normal rainfall. The heavy rainfall saturated soil, preventing the ground from soaking up more water from storms in August. Pakistan’s downpours have flooded a third of the country, according to officials, affecting 33 million people, and killing at least 1,100. In southeast Pakista…

This week our guest is a professor, marine biologist, and fellow FL Tech alum, Katrina Dutton. Surface waters are now 30 percent more acidic than they were at the start of the industrial era. Projections show that by the end of this century, ocean surface waters could be more than twice as acidic as they were at the end of last century if we do not…

Agriculture provides employment for roughly 25 million people in Pakistan and is the main income source for 34% and 74% of economically active men and women respectively in the country. The sector is taking hit after hit due to our rapidly changing climate and the resources for adaptation and mitigation are limited here, as they are in most develop…

An estimated 70–80% of the MSW generated in Africa is recyclable, yet only 4% of MSW is currently recycled. 5% of all textiles go to the dump every year, according to the World Economic Forum, enough to fill Sydney Harbor annually. In a state with growing businesses and clothes manufacturers, the issue of fast fashion that is quickly disposed of is…

The conversation with Mr. Pam, who is the head of the independent integrity unit at the GCF, continues in this episode. This time we talk about projects, the process for handling reports, the tools that ensure accountability and more. Links used for references are below: How can we meet the urgency of financing climate action in cities? The broken …

Mr. Ibrahim Pam, head of the Independent Integrity Unity (IIU) at the Green Climate Fund joins the policy pals to discuss how sustainable projects can be financed with integrity. The GCF is currently the world’s largest dedicated multilateral climate fund and the main multilateral financing mechanism to support developing countries in achieving a r…

Mrs. Semenitari is back for part 2 to get into the details of the causes behind the soot issue in Port-Harcourt, Nigeria. How effective are the government’s strategies? How valid are the claims of transitioning to greener energy? What do the people in the Niger Delta community get as a response to their worsening environmental issues? We tackle the…

There is a literal cloud hanging over the city of Port Harcourt, Nigeria that has existed for several years. For the local people of Port Harcourt, the soot has made life hell. In our first ever interview, Ibim Semenitari joins us to discuss an issue she and other members of her community are working to tackle. Mrs. Semenitari worked for over three…

The ozone layer filters out incoming radiation in the "cell-damaging" ultraviolet (UV) part of the spectrum. One example of ozone depletion is the annual ozone "hole" over Antarctica that has occurred during the Antarctic spring since the early 1980s. The effects of ozone depletion range include poor air quality, imbalance in bio-geo-chemical cycle…

It has been 1 year exactly since we launched our first official episode and we are so grateful to all our listeners, so although we made sure to cover an environmental topic this week, we went real big picture and decided to just tackle the entire climate change issue in one go! LOL not even. It took nearly a century of research and data to convinc…

In this episode, we continue our discussions on polar ice melting by shifting our focus to the Arctic and water. Changes to the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are of considerable societal importance, as they directly impact global sea levels, which are a result of climate change. Sea level rise will reshape coastlines as incoming water floods d…

In this episode we are going to talk about what happens when the polar ice caps melt, with a focus on effects seen in the earth’s crust and permafrost loss. Ongoing ice loss in West Antarctica has increased over the past few decades. Measurements since the 1950s indicate that the amount of sea ice in the Arctic has been declining. Permafrost in the…

WE'RE BACK! Series 4 is coming and we are tackling some more big picture environmental dilemmas based on feedback from our loyal listeners. In this mini episode, we catch up with you all and discuss what we are looking forward to this year personally and for the planet policy pals podcast. Captions of transcript available on our Youtube Page…

We have had an amazing year and series sharing stories with our policy pals and now in this last episode of the year, we would like to share two more oil spill stories that reflect what this series was about- how human negligence and rash actions can be detrimental to our continued existence. The Exxon valdez oil spill was the largest oil spill in …

About 17 percent of the U.S.’s total crude oil production comes from offshore projects in the Gulf today and the region provides more than a fifth of U.S. oil and gas production. The BP Deepwater Horizon rig capsized 36 hours after an explosion, on the morning of April 22, which is coincidentally Earth Day, a globally recognized day promoting envir…

In August, an alarming UN report blamed human activity for “unprecedented” changes to the climate. Scientists from across the globe said humanity will experience more extreme weather in the coming years and will suffer the consequences of rising sea levels and melting Arctic ice. Our hope is that highlighting this will further drive home the import…

An unforeseeable accident on July 10, 1976, in northern Italy, led to an environmental contamination with caustic reaction products and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD). Original contamination of vegetation was in the order of O.5 ppm TCDD. The tragedy in Seveso led to changes in hazardous waste policy that reached from Europe to the rest…

Smog had become a frequent part of London life, but nothing quite compared to the smoke-laden fog that shrouded the capital from Friday 5 December to Tuesday 9 December 1952. The Met Office says though that “While it heavily affected the population of London, causing a huge death toll and inconveniencing millions of people, the people it affected w…

The coastal ecosystems of mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrass meadows contain large stores of carbon deposited by vegetation and various natural processes over centuries. These ecosystems sequester and store more carbon – often referred to as ‘blue carbon’ – per unit area than terrestrial forests. The ability of these vegetated ecosystems to remo…

Oil was first found in Nigeria in 1956, then a British protectorate, by a joint operation between Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum. A major 1970 oil spill in Ogoniland in the south-east of Nigeria led to thousands of gallons being spilt on farmland and rivers, ultimately leading to a £26m fine for Shell in Nigerian courts 30 years later. Wit…

The IPCC is now in its sixth assessment cycle, in which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is producing the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) with contributions by its three Working Groups and a Synthesis Report, three Special Reports, and a refinement to its latest Methodology Report. The Synthesis Report will be the last of the AR6 …

During the last four decades, the sea level pressure has been decreasing over the Amundsen–Bellingshausen Sea (ABS) region and increasing between New Zealand and Chile, which created pressure dipoles across the South Pacific. Researchers have now linked the natural phenomenon exacerbated by human activities and climate change to the mega droughts t…

The World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) describes forests as the “lifeblood of our economies and our health.” Forests cover nearly one-third of the global land area and are the source of 75 percent of the world’s freshwater. Nowhere has more native rainforest been wiped out than Borneo. Between 2000 and 2017, 6.04 million hectares of old-growth forest…

This week we unpack the entirely avoidable tragedy that has come to be known as the world’s worst industrial disaster. In the night of December 2, 1984, chemical, methyl isocyanate (MIC) spilt out from Union Carbide India Ltd’s (UCIL’s) pesticide factory turned the city of Bhopal into a colossal gas chamber. It was India's first major industrial di…

The April 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine was the product of a flawed Soviet reactor design coupled with serious mistakes made by the plant operators. The accident caused the largest uncontrolled radioactive release into the environment ever recorded for any civilian operation, and large quantities of radioactive subst…

It’s a new series and a new topic. Until the end of the year, we will focus on some of the environmental tragedies that have been caused by humans and impacted communities severely in the last few decades. Topics like the Bhopal disaster, Chernobyl and the oil spill that gave us Earth day are on the list. We want to learn how these things happened …

In episode 17, we discussed how the principles of ecotourism can improve general tourism, but there is a dark side too. Ecotourism is now a large industry and there are not enough regulations to control how it is operated. The destruction of local resources to make room for ecotourism is a problem. In this mini-sode we discuss some examples of the …

Global demand for dairy continues to increase in large part due to population growth, rising incomes, urbanization and westernization of diets in countries such as China and India. Milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, and other dairy products are ubiquitous, consumed by more than 6 billion people worldwide. In this episode, we explore the myths…

Flash flooding is fresh in our minds following the devastation seen recently in Germany. Urban areas are more likely to experience this type of "surface water" flooding because they have a lot of hard surfaces. Last year, flooding in Senegal displaced over 4000 people and this year, we have seen events in China, Nigeria, Afghanistan, London, USA, G…

45 people arrive on average at tourist locations every minute and there have already been over 740,000 tourist visits this year alone. While tourism creates jobs and is a great way to appreciate the diversity of the human experience, mass tourism also takes a toll on the environment. In this episode, we look at the positives versus negatives of dif…

In 2020, the United States, Brazil and the European Union accounted for roughly 50% of the world's beef production. In Episode 16, we continue the conversation on the impact of meat on our environment by focusing on some of the biggest producers and consumers, as well as the regulations and cultural paradigms that guide production and consumption i…

Worldwatch Institute data notes that people in industrial countries eat an average of 176 pounds of meat per person. This rising consumption of meat makes the industry one of the greatest contributing factors to global warming and environmental degradation in general. In this week’s episode, the pals are diving into the habits that drive our meat c…

Last episode, we talked about the problem that the textile industry poses towards the environment and what some companies are doing to change that. The European Union is enacting regulation that will change how manufacturers market clothing and in places like the UK, waste programs are undergoing to meet the fashion waste problem. In this episode, …

We begin our series investigating the connection between large industries and the environment with textiles. According to the UN, the total carbon emissions of the fashion industry account for 10% of global carbon emissions, making it the second most polluting industry after the oil industry. Prepare to explore the history of the textile industry b…

Following their economic boom, China has begun an intense environmental movement spearheaded by its government to clamp down on offenders in business, imports and even officials that cause harm to the environment. Basically, they’re coming for everybody and we were not ready AT ALL.By Ajwah Zahid and Alayibo Semenitari

In this extra long, extra policy discussion, we are discussing a problem that has been plaguing African countries for a long time- the import of hazardous wastes and the mechanisms that fail to stop the practice. We focus on electronic wastes and the implications of the failing Bamako convention.By Ajwah Zahid and Alayibo Semenitari

Still on a break, but Ajwah shared a story about how a small town in upstate NY set the ball rolling for a state now free of fracking. Can communities and towns continue to hold their own against corporations? We mulled it over in this week’s extra policy. Spoiler alert- we do not agree.By Ajwah Zahid and Alayibo Semenitari

In this extra policy clip, the pals start off our one month summer break by responding to an audience question regarding corporation commitments to net zero emissions by 2050. Is it really possible? Are companies pandering? Why is it taking so long? Is it enough commitment? Listen and find out!By Ajwah Zahid and Alayibo Semenitari

In our latest Ep 8 to end our first series, the pals take a look at both sides of the SANE arguments concerning the Green New Deal. The green new deal is a non-binding resolution for tackling climate change at the federal level. The idea of a Green New Deal first arose at the time of the 2007-2008 financial crisis in the US and the UK. The current …

In this extra policy clip, the pals get into a listener question and discuss overfishing and whaling policies and impacts. Why do we even still have this problem? It’s complicated.By Ajwah Zahid

In episode 6, we turn our attention to grassroots organizations. A grassroots organization or movement is basically a community driven effort. These movements matter because who knows what a community needs better than those who live there? Show notes and references available at our website or with this link https://docs.google.com/document/d/186OL…

Sometimes, we have to cut great conversations because we have a lot to say. Here, Ajwah and Ala share our honest thoughts about climate change and attitudes towards climate action.By Ajwah Zahid