Zombie Book Club

This Has Nothing To Do With Zombies (and we almost didn't upload it) | Zombie Book Club Ep 114

• Zombie Book Club • Season 3 • Episode 114

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This episode digs into how the Trump Administration has rolled back decades of clean energy progress—through sweeping executive orders, budget cuts, and cancelled programs—and how those moves are hitting communities of color, the poor, and Indigenous Nations the hardest. Leah shares her own loss of work in environmental justice, and we break down what that means in real terms: higher energy bills, fewer clean-energy jobs, loss of protections, and more pollution in the places that already bear the worst burdens.


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SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is real life. And the people in charge want to make everything they touch just as broken and incompetent as they themselves. I'm Dan. And when I'm not living in a Christo-fascist wet dream, I'm writing a book about a zombie apocalypse and all the wannabe dictators who would use the tragedy as an opportunity to impose their will on all the survivors. Fun. So fun. You know what? I wish that I was faster at writing because if I'd already published this book, people would be looking at it and Wow, how did you know? You paid attention to patterns. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, just like any other good dystopian novelist.

SPEAKER_01:

What I've learned from all this is I need to learn how to write faster.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, definitely. I'm Leah. When I'm not filled to the brim with rage at the Trump administration's attempted murder of my livelihood, and more importantly, the entire environmental justice movement, I am out watering my garden, staring up at a 16-foot tall sunflower, and plotting my revenge. I didn't know

SPEAKER_01:

our sunflowers were that

SPEAKER_03:

tall. They are. They are extremely tall. They're so tall. And very beautiful. And the bees love them. Oh

SPEAKER_01:

my God, the tomatoes. And they give me

SPEAKER_03:

a lot of joy.

SPEAKER_01:

Quick aside, I made a post on threads about tomatoes. I did not expect it to blow up the way that it did. It's so many people showing me pictures of their tomatoes. It's the simple things in life. It's wonderful, actually. I love talking about tomatoes with people.

SPEAKER_03:

We're eating a lot of our garden tomatoes right now, and it's also one of the joys.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my God. If you haven't had a friend. garden tomato like you you just don't know

SPEAKER_03:

you gotta go get one yeah or you gotta grow one if you have any opportunity to grow one which not everybody does so that's um it's reality we're very lucky to have space to grow things

SPEAKER_01:

community gardens

SPEAKER_03:

yes make them a thing urban agriculture is the coolest today we are doing a very long overdue casual dead episode that uh when i originally slotted this in as a casual dead episode after a marathon of zombie author interviews. I thought this will be fun. So much fun. It'll be coming out in the fall equinox. That's cool. But then I got fired. Well, I got laid off. So this episode starts off with something a little fun. We've got a voicemail groan from the horde. But then I feel like I owe it to the community. I don't owe you. I am choosing to be vulnerable with you all to share a little bit more about why I got laid off and our real life apocalypse and why I say that Trump murdered my day job and is a mass murderer. And yes, I am saying that with my full chest.

SPEAKER_01:

But Leah, Trump hasn't been murdering people with a gun on TV or anything. How could you say such a thing? Did

SPEAKER_03:

Hitler directly kill all of the people, the millions of people? Now you're comparing him to Hitler too? Yeah. Remember when people used to be like, that's too soon. Don't make those comparisons. And again, I don't think he's the same. It's not the same moment in time, but it's definitely very similar belief systems and motives that drive his actions and his entire administration's actions and the people who vote for him. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Well, you know what? Both of them are talented artists. That's true. One of them drew some really great titties for the Epstein's birthday. Yeah, that's so good. Yeah. We release episodes every Sunday, so subdivide America. I

SPEAKER_01:

didn't see that one coming.

UNKNOWN:

Well,

SPEAKER_03:

It's too perfect.

SPEAKER_01:

I did not see that one coming.

SPEAKER_03:

Especially for a president being a real estate mogul. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It works on so many levels. Yeah. Because that's definitely what the administration is doing right now. They are all about dividing us even further.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And fermenting hate.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Fermented hate.

SPEAKER_03:

But it's us radical lefties who are the violent, horrible ones. Yeah. I'm violent. It's true. You caught me.

UNKNOWN:

You caught me.

SPEAKER_03:

So, yeah. Are there zombies in the movie? this episode i you know we could make some stretches of metaphorical zombies but this is a true life update episode i

SPEAKER_01:

think yeah we're updating the things in our life

SPEAKER_03:

yeah in the

SPEAKER_01:

context it into an apocalypse

SPEAKER_03:

yeah the yeah we're going we're going through a mini apocalypse i feel like i i always say that and i'm like it could be so much worse it really really could be and i think it is in a broader societal global level much worse than my individual circumstances which i'm very grateful to say yeah but why don't we have a moment of love before we get into it. Yeah, let's levitate. We have a zombest. You sent us a voicemail. Dan, I need to plug in the thing

SPEAKER_01:

you do. Oh, shit.

SPEAKER_03:

We have a thing, everybody. I should have done this earlier. Yeah, well, we're never prepared. Everybody who's ever been interviewed by us is like, wait, this is what it actually sounds like when you're recording? And then they're like, wow, you're really good at editing. This one is from July 23rd. That's how long it's been since we've recorded. A different world. Casual dead, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm driving down the interstate right now. And I just saw a gaggle of granny zombies cropping the road from Shady Oak's retirement community. Is this the watch list number? Is this the government? Who am I calling? I'm here to report a gaggle of grandmother zombies. Oh, my God. They're headed right for a construction site. Oh, my God. They got a construction worker. Oh, they're not eating them. Oh, I didn't expect to see them do that.

SPEAKER_01:

What are they doing?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'm here to report it here off of the 599 up here in Washington. I'm seeing the zombies. They're doing something with the construction workers. It's not eating them. Well, they're not eating their brains. I'll say that. But please get over here quick. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, we're on our way. Wow. I mean, we'll probably get on time, right? Yeah, I think it's, I mean, what

SPEAKER_03:

were they eating? It sounds scandalous. Also, good friend, you didn't leave your name for us. I love that we're the watch, are we the zombie watch list number? I think so. For the government?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I guess so.

SPEAKER_03:

A gaggle of granny zombies. This sounds like another art project for me. Now that I'm unemployed, I got time. Yeah. Maybe I should attempt to draw a gaggle of granny zombies crossing the road from Shady Oaks retirement community. And doing something. Something to construct Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Your podcast is terrible. Oh. I hate it. It's so badly edited, and you're not funny, and your faces are stupid. And also, nobody wants to hear any more chicken clucks. No more. Or anthropology facts. That's too woke. Too woke! Get

SPEAKER_02:

out of here.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'm going to call the police

SPEAKER_01:

on you, because you're too woke.

SPEAKER_02:

Will the cops come for that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

It's a big Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Actually, we're just leaving this voicemail because nobody's leaving us voicemails, which means that it's at risk of being deleted.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, don't delete our voicemails.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, I know people have been sending us quality audio via recordings to our email. We appreciate that. They

SPEAKER_01:

are very high

SPEAKER_02:

quality. Sometimes we want a grainy voice message.

SPEAKER_03:

This goes on for a long time. We're going to pause there. Apparently, we gave ourselves an almost three-minute voice message from March 3rd. So who was it? It was us, Dan. But

SPEAKER_01:

we're here. It's called the magic of time. I don't get it. So if we're here now, how could we also be making a phone call? Because

SPEAKER_03:

recording devices have bridged the time distance continuum. Whoa. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's like four dimensional technology.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Like right now we are making this podcast, but then somebody will be listening to it. And I don't know, we've had some cool new places popping up on our podcast. list uh yeah what's one of them dan i don't know uh falkirk falkirk florianopolis santa carina yeah somebody there's listening to this wow a week and a half from now but we're with them hello i hope you're having a lovely day or evening wherever you are yeah

SPEAKER_01:

this

SPEAKER_03:

is where you're from lovely i think it must be we've got some really fun locations i gotta say it's one of the most fun parts of like looking at our podcast stats is like all the places people are listening to us

SPEAKER_01:

yeah i do like that too I love it when a country pops up that I don't always expect.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, there's quite a few in here. I'm like, I don't know where this is. Sometimes I Google them. Tanzania

SPEAKER_01:

is one of them.

SPEAKER_03:

Mount Mangunui. I'm so sorry if I'm butchering that. Bay of Plenty. Oh, yeah. The Bay of Plenty. I don't know where that is. Hounslow. Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Santa Cruz de Tenerife. I don't know how to say that either. Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. So many good ones. Leeds. Hello, Leeds. Hi, Leeds. Bolton. Yeah, lots of cool places. Hi, Dublin. That's fun. I love seeing Dublin on here. But I think I'm stalling. I think I'm avoiding what we're

SPEAKER_01:

about

SPEAKER_03:

to talk about.

SPEAKER_01:

We are stalling. Is there any

SPEAKER_03:

more

SPEAKER_01:

groans, Leah? No. Oh, that's it? Yeah. Okay. We're

SPEAKER_03:

saving other ones that are less anonymous for future episodes so that they won't have to be on the episode that calls itself Trump is a mass murderer and other zombie life updates because we felt that that wasn't really fair to other people.

SPEAKER_01:

um life updates leah yeah let's talk about us for a change fun let's do it uh so i've been making nazis big mad by exercising my first amendment right

SPEAKER_03:

really what's been happening

SPEAKER_01:

well you see um i'm not gonna get into it because you know it's it's all over the news uh what's leo what's what's your life update

SPEAKER_03:

uh well i've been um unemployed officially for nine days as of this recording and everything I'm going to talk about in this episode is my own opinion and in no way represents any organization I have worked for or ever will work for and in fact every episode that is the case I've only ever spoken for myself and I've deliberately not brought in my last name or the places I've worked because I want this to be a space of expression just for me but I'm going to say that just in case because I do know some of my former colleagues may be listening Uh, or future colleagues. That would be funny. Maybe I'll have a job again. So I want to be clear about that. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I lost my job. I've, I've been in a, been a tailspin. I knew I'd lost my job. They kind of gave us two weeks notice.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So I've had time.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's also something that's been building for a long time too.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Like it's, it's one of those looming things that it's like, it's coming.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. When Trump was elected last November, which is two months, a little less than two months. from when we're recording this, I remember looking at you and saying, like everybody was like, oh my God,

SPEAKER_01:

are you going to be okay? Two months from the one year anniversary.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, like it's September now, it's two months from, so it's like 10 months now Trump has been elected as the president. And you asked me, people asked me like, what do you think is going to happen to your job? Because you know that my job is the antithesis of everything that the Trump administration stands for. And I said, I think I've got about a year before shit starts to get really bad. And I was overly optimistic by By a very long shot. You know, I remember on day one and two, his executive orders. And then I was like, fuck. And then it just kept getting worse. And yeah, now I'm here. Now I'm unemployed.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So what, what did, what did you do without like, you know, without giving too much away, of course?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I worked for a national nonprofit that was advocating for clean energy across the states. So we did legislation and regulated to make clean energy, specifically solar, more affordable and accessible for regular people as an alternative, obviously, to fossil fuels for lots of reasons, all the reasons you would want to have clean energy. And my job specifically was about bringing people together into coalitions to fight for policy that would actually make their lives better. So bringing together frontline community organizations, clean energy groups, political decision makers to build policy that would result in a world where everybody had access to abundant clean energy that they could afford. At the end of the day, that's what I did. So the goal of my specific job was to make sure that the people who were most affected by racism, poverty, other forms of oppression across the United States were the people who had the leading voices and say and what kind of policy or what clean energy rollout should look like so that it wasn't just for rich people, basically. And that they were actually benefiting from it instead of our current system which is that all of the pollution not all of it but like the polluting industries are typically in the backyards of black brown native communities and poor communities and rural communities and they suffer the worst

SPEAKER_01:

and literally in their backyard

SPEAKER_03:

yes

SPEAKER_01:

like sometimes like they're they're dumping waste literally in the lot next door to somebody's house

SPEAKER_03:

yeah so it's really about justice it's about having folks who've been the most impacted saying what does what does clean energy need to look like for us. Because if you don't do that, if we had just focused on, let's get as much solar up as possible, that's cool, but it would have just reinforced the oppressive structures that exist today. And that's a whole other thing to get into. But for example, if you don't bother to ask, like, hey, do you want solar in your backyard? Guess where the solar is not going to be? Not in the rich white people's backyards.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's going to be the people that are living paycheck to paycheck, trying to keep up with their power Yeah. And

SPEAKER_03:

it might be located in places that are sacred lands for native nations, for example. So it's really important that the people who have experienced the first and worst of pollution through the fossil fuel industry are at the highest risk for climate change impacts because of weather patterns changing. All of those things who have been disinvested in, those communities deliberately excluded from investments all across the country, and them being a thriving place should be the ones who say, how we do this because otherwise it's just, it's more of the same. It's just now solar. So that was my job.

SPEAKER_01:

There's, there was a story that I remember you telling, like, this was like when you were first applying to, to work for this company, the story of the people, I think it was just outside of Detroit who,

SPEAKER_03:

yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

their, their whole neighborhood or their whole community was basically just, they just had their electricity turned off by the power company. And the power company is like, We're taking our streetlights. We're taking your power. We don't care. You haven't paid your bills.

SPEAKER_03:

Basically. I mean, that's a very simplified explanation, but yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, we need simple sometimes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

And instead of like, I mean, you know this story better than I do, but this is my understanding. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the idea was like, why should we fork over more money to the power company when we could spend that money on community solar and be rid of these fucking assholes? Monopoly utilities.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, if you're getting your power from a utility company, odds are they're a monopoly utility. And if you didn't know this, whether they make their money is convincing the Public Utilities Commission in your state that they need to make more investments in typically gas plants, oil plants, other polluting things or nuclear, which is extremely expensive and takes forever to get online. And then obviously, I don't even need to get into the pollution impacts of that. If I do, I guess that's another podcast. That's how they They make money. They make money by spending your money. And then they get a return on equity. So how much money they have put in. That's how they make money. They don't make money by giving you better service, by being more effective at their jobs. They don't get more money by being equitable in how they distribute their resources. None of that.

SPEAKER_01:

So they're the only game in town. So they're a monopoly.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You have to have them because that's the expectation. They can set their rates to whatever they want based on what they claim their needs are.

SPEAKER_03:

It's not to whatever they want. That's part of what the organization I worked for did was they would, uh, it's called intervening. It's really wonky. Um, but basically you, a lot of the time you'd have to have a lawyer. So you had to be able to afford a lawyer to intervene in these proceedings where the utility would say, we need X millions of dollars to invest in the grid, uh, to do these things, to make sure we have enough power and energy. And then our organization would be like, uh, No, you don't. And also, have you considered solar? It's more affordable. It's more distributed. It creates better things like microgrids, where just because one neighborhood loses its power, you're not going to have mass power outages. There's all kinds of benefits. So that's one thing that we did. There's so much. I think the combination of the stress I've been under and the fact that it was already a very technical topic, it's hard to talk about in detail. But I would just say at the end of the day, it was about... My job was about not just utilities making more money and polluting more, but communities having affordable access to power and clean energy so that they weren't experiencing more pollution and that they also had things like backup batteries and microgrids, smaller grids that allowed them to be more resilient when there would be tropical storms that otherwise would knock out their community forever.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, not forever, but for a long time. Yeah, a decentralization of power, which the people in power hate.

SPEAKER_03:

God, that was such a bad explanation. But hey, hope it made some sense. You can, Dan, edit me to make me make sense. Okay, I will. Great.

SPEAKER_01:

You're welcome. So that brings us to you, Leah. Why did you have to go? Why did they have to get rid of you?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, they got rid of 20% of us, to be clear. It wasn't just

SPEAKER_01:

me. It wasn't just you. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

And honestly, there's been thousands and thousands of layoffs. I think we were at, last I checked, like 10 million layoffs this year in the United States. But ultimately, I lost my job. because trump won the presidency uh and in 2025 he came in and within days put in a bunch of executive orders uh that gutted clean energy initiatives anything environmental injustice environmental justice related or diversity equity inclusion related called them all extremist and uh basically clawed back every single federal program that promoted those things

SPEAKER_01:

so because you wanted to advocate for people getting solar panels on their roof uh, terrorism.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Terrorist. That's the very shortest explanation. Yes. And, um, in particular, one of the biggest death knells was that through, um, the inflation reduction act that was passed during COVID from president Biden, there were these$7 billion in solar for all grants. And those grants were specifically about getting millions of people who would otherwise never be able to afford solar solar. And, um, basically they laid off thousands of workers at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. When they canceled those solar for all grants, that was$7 billion that was disinvested from all 50 states. These were programs that were already underway and were about to actually start going. People put years into making sure that they were really good programs in those

SPEAKER_01:

states, so all the states have lost. People started solar installation companies because they were going to be installing.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, that's beyond solar for Well, it enabled

SPEAKER_01:

those companies to start. So people were gainfully employed and starting businesses because these opportunities were there.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. There was also the 30% tax credit, which is why we have solar on our house. Yeah. That was clawed back. All kinds of other things were clawed back and are no longer going to exist after the end of 2025, basically. And especially things like what I did, which was about building power with the community's most harmed by racism, pollutionism, and poverty were called extremists and said that they were bad. And so what that means is while my organization, I did not receive direct federal funding, a lot of the funders who do this kind of work started slashing budgets for organizations like mine. Back in February, there were a ton of nonprofits that had expected federal dollars that had huge layoffs. lost a ton of their workers, had to close their doors, had to pull back from all these projects because they weren't getting the money they're supposed to be, and eventually trickled down economics in the wrong way.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, it's trickling.

SPEAKER_03:

There's a lot of crisis. There's too many crises for these non-profit philanthropic entities to address. And so organizations like mine got significantly less funding than they were expecting, and they had to cut their staff to survive. And I was one of those staff

SPEAKER_01:

If you do something or say something that Trump just disagrees with, like clean energy is good, for example, that means that you are dangerous and your livelihood should be cut off entirely.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Because you're an extremist. You extremely want the opposite of what Trump wants.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I'm going to briefly explain how racism is directly related to the power industry and energy, because I think it's important. I'm not just like throwing these words around. So have you heard of redlining Dan?

SPEAKER_01:

I feel like I just recently heard this word described. Um, but no,

SPEAKER_03:

basically back in the day, uh, banks and governments literally drew red lines on maps to deny black families, loans, and insurance to buy homes. So in particular, after world war two, there was this, that's kind of when mortgages were became like a real thing. in order to have folks who came back from the war get a house. But they instituted these really racist mapping exercises that basically made it so that if you were in a quote-unquote black community, which is just one black family moving into a community, all of a sudden you get redlined and the value of your property gets tanked. And it makes it very difficult for you to get a mortgage.

SPEAKER_01:

This is tied to sayings like, there goes the neighborhood.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Where a black family moves into your neighborhood and you're like, well, there goes the value of my house.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's exactly where things like white flight happened because one black family would move into a neighborhood and they'd be like, oh no, there goes our property values. Yeah. Very, very fucked up. Those same neighborhoods that had red lines, black neighborhoods were the same neighborhoods who got highways running through them, polluting factories and power plants dropped on them because white people didn't want any of that shit.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Not in their

SPEAKER_03:

backyard. Not in their backyard. Yeah. And today this continues because utility companies responsible for getting the power to our homes literally just like don't invest as much money into those same communities as they do for middle class and wealthier neighborhoods. So the grid, meaning all the things that the wires and the magical do hickeys that get the power to your home. You've seen those are very frequently in poor neighborhoods, black neighborhoods, black and brown neighborhoods, extremely under invested in and absolute shit. So say you actually have the ability um like you've got the money you want to put solar in your house but you're in that neighborhood the cost to you as the consumer you actually have to pay for the upgrade to the grid to get solar uh like how much of the it can be very expensive uh slash maybe even impossible because you're then you're putting out in a whole there's a whole interconnection queue it's very complicated but what i'm saying is it's even more difficult even say you have the money to get solar they might say to you we can't do it like so for example when we got more solar on our route And same with the first time they have to contact the utility to make sure the grid is set up to actually receive the power that we are going to get from solar. Otherwise we would have been responsible to pay for upgrades if we wanted

SPEAKER_01:

it. So like if the transformers in our neighborhood just weren't set up to

SPEAKER_03:

the magical

SPEAKER_01:

do receive the power from our roofs, we'd have to buy new transformers for the neighborhood.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

I get it. I see what you're saying. I was in my mind. I was imagining like this giant power relay hanging up. across like a single wide trailer and they're like, you have to buy that 100 foot tall power line. Yeah,

SPEAKER_03:

basically. And now I'm going to add more insult to injury. Your power bills are higher in neighborhoods like this a lot of the time because the infrastructure is so poor.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_03:

So you're looking at bills that are higher than white middle class neighborhoods nearby.

SPEAKER_01:

Sounds super fair.

SPEAKER_03:

This is, I'm going to be really clear, this is the most basic off-the-cuff explanation. And if you want to understand more, my friend Farood Amil wrote an incredible report called Wiring the Divide, The Impact of Redlining on Electric Infrastructure, and it's going to be linked in the show notes. I highly recommend you read it because it walks all of this out for you in a way that is irrefutable and evidence-based. So this is just me off-the-cuff explaining one example of the way Racist policies continue to harm people to this day.

SPEAKER_01:

And also, it's me barely understanding what Leah's talking about. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to have to check that out because I haven't read that.

SPEAKER_03:

There's also a documentary called The House We... Well, there's a whole series of documentaries from PBR called Race, The Power of an Illusion. And one of them is called The House We Live In. And if you want to learn more about redlining and listen to interviews from both black and white folks living in that time trying to to figure out how to navigate this racist housing policy, you can watch that documentary. I think it's free on PBS, right? Not PBR, sorry. Not the alcohol. I was going to say, Pabst Blue Ribbon is putting out documentaries. It is wild. It is absolutely wild to watch.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, let's watch it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, God, okay. I used to show it in the class that I taught, but I'll watch it again.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, let's watch it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

2025, there was a lot. Like, it almost feels like a bad word in my mouth. 2025. I don't like saying

SPEAKER_03:

it. I

SPEAKER_01:

don't like saying 2025. But what happened specifically in 2025 that was so bad for your work?

SPEAKER_03:

If people would like, I have a one-pager ready of all of the executive orders with links. It's too many to put in the show notes. But if people would like them, I have a one-pager that explains those executive orders, links to them, as well as the big, beautiful bill that really just was the... fucking cherry on top and the revoking of the seven billion dollars of solar for all that gets us here but there were seven executive orders and basically rapid fire uh what those seven executive orders did was they revoked every and any climate and environmental justice rule that the federal government had they basically were like very explicitly said we are handing power over to the fossil fuel companies like we are making fossil fuels our first priority in energy we're going to end any kind of diversity equity and inclusion programming which is in some ways what I did. We are going to make it so that states are no longer in control of their energy policy, which is a huge change. Yeah. As I said, that what I used to do was entirely at the state level regulations.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a huge change even from Trump's own first term policies, which was we're going to let the states figure it out.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And then they murdered clean energy funding just as it was about to reach the neighborhoods that needed it the most via the solo for all program. So as I said before, they, that, resulted in absolute chaos, a lot of people losing their jobs, including me, and a huge gap in funding that philanthropic organizations could never fill. And that's just in the clean energy, environmental justice, climate justice world. We're not even talking, as everybody listening here knows, about every other horrifying attack the United States federal government has done to people. So this is just in one place. So it's just chaos. And nonprofits who are in these kinds of industries are most affected are scrambling just to survive right now. And unfortunately, that means people like me lose my job. And I want to be clear, for those who are listening that maybe worked with me, I do think the organization I worked for did it as humanely as possible overall, and that I'm in a much better position than others were. I did get a little bit of severance. There was another organization, I'm going to just say it because it's in the news, Posigen, laid off hundreds of workers with no notice and no severance. Wow. Nothing.

SPEAKER_01:

That'd be really rough.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And it's also in the clean energy industry. So it could be worse. I could be in a much worse situation. And that's why I say that it's really an attempted murder of the entire environmental justice movement that people have been fighting for for fucking decades. They're trying to destroy it all overnight. But we're not going to let them. I want to be clear about that. This is a huge setback.

SPEAKER_01:

But

SPEAKER_03:

people have fought for these things unfunded,

SPEAKER_01:

without

SPEAKER_03:

organizations. that exist like we have today or had uh for decades and they're not going to stop fighting including myself in the ways that i can

SPEAKER_01:

yeah i think that's something that uh the the current administration really underestimates and doesn't understand is that you know they're always talking about like oh well these these protesters are funded by george soros and the thing is the the truth of it is we don't need to be paid to fight fascism no because Yeah. No, I mean, we are watching mass

SPEAKER_03:

murder in slow motion in so many facets of what's happening with the Trump administration. But specifically, in this circumstance in environmental justice, we were at a potential turning point. The reality is that the actions of the federal administration are going to kill so many people. Already, oil and gas pollution kills around 90,000 Americans a year. It gives more than 200,000 children asthma. Black children are twice as likely to suffer as white children. And no, it's not because race is real. It's not. It's not biologically real. If you don't know that, again, listen or watch the documentaries Race the Power of an Illusion. It's not real. We've made it real through policy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

We're all homo sapiens.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. And there's more, literally more genetic material that makes us similar than different across so-called races. Side tangent. It's different because they put polluting industries in black people's, native people's, and brown people's backyards because they are already often disenfranchised and don't have the power to fight back. and white wealthy neighborhoods are always not in my backyarding it.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right.

SPEAKER_03:

And so that's why it's twice as bad, not because there's something else happening there genetically. There's a place called Cancer Alley. Have you heard of that, Dan?

SPEAKER_01:

You've mentioned it to me, but could you explain Cancer Alley?

SPEAKER_03:

Briefly, it's an 85 mile stretch of the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that has 150 to 200 petrochemical plants, all in black and low income neighborhoods. And the cancer risks there are 10%. 10 times higher than the national average. 10 times higher.

SPEAKER_01:

I've seen some of these places because I did cross-country truck driving, Baton Rouge and New Orleans. It seemed like there was just smokestacks everywhere.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And that's my point is that these policies, the policies that we were fighting for that we're getting forward momentum on, we're helping people live good, healthy lives. That was the goal. It's not about how much solar is on people's roofs or whatever. That's not Yeah. Yeah. And for

SPEAKER_01:

anyone who's been paying attention, you know that this is, like we said before, just a fraction of what the administration's doing.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, we're only talking about one thing right

SPEAKER_01:

now. Yeah. and industry losses that are happening right now because of his stupid fucking ideas well it's not really his ideas are they they're not but they it comes out of his mouth and I give him credit for that

SPEAKER_03:

yeah and I don't want to end it on that like brutal note because I do want to say like we've been here before and I think about groups like the Black Panthers and their incredible community programs I know we've talked about them on previous episodes there is going the fight is not over. People are going to continue to fight back. I think the thing that is really important to remember over and over and over again is that whether or not this shit is in your backyard, it's coming for you and you should be fighting too. And we should not be just resting on our laurels and waiting for the people who are already in the highest amount of struggle to figure this shit out and have no support, no backing. We need to be standing 10 toes down behind them, following their leadership. And no matter what job I do for a living that's something that will drive me until the end of my days because liberation doesn't happen overnight and it's a constant struggle and we're just in a really fucking bleak period right now but we have a lot of leaders to follow and we have a lot of incredible people to pay attention to and so that's what's keeping me going is knowing that the fight's not over

SPEAKER_01:

yeah also like it's not just coming to people's backyards it's going to be coming to their national parks yeah it's going to be coming to the natural monuments of our country. If you look at everything that's happening with the administration, we're not far off from just filling the Grand Canyon with garbage. We're not far off from putting an oil derrick on the top of Mount Rushmore.

SPEAKER_03:

Don't even get me started. Mount Rushmore is one of the most racist things ever.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And yeah, they just want to destroy everything. And that actually what they're doing it's not my opinion it's what they're doing

SPEAKER_03:

yeah

SPEAKER_01:

they're tearing it all down and they're not replacing it with anything good

SPEAKER_03:

and like any apocalypse the only silver lining is that we have to fight our like a fucking we have never fought before if I'm speaking to a fellow white folks who have not felt the need to fight as much as others have but we got to fight apologies to every black and brown person listening for the complete lack of support y'all have been given by white folks slash just white Nazis.

SPEAKER_01:

Sorry for the Charlie Kirks among us.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, basically. And I feel like I'm just really filled with rage. My point is, we gotta fight. If it hasn't touched you yet, it's going to. I'm evidence of that. I got all the privileges, baby. I'm English speaking. I'm white. I got nice green eyes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Got that light skin tone.

SPEAKER_01:

You went to... I got a university

SPEAKER_03:

degree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You got all the things and still here we are.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And again, I'm still incredibly privileged in comparison to many people through no fault of my own, just some luck in terms of my birth location and parents.

SPEAKER_01:

So there's one little bit of hope that I have in this very bleak moment is that in everything being torn down and destroyed and made worse objectively throughout our entire country and throughout the world is that we will finally, maybe not all of us, but we will finally see everything for what it is and make changes that make America what it was always promised to be. I almost thought you were going to say that. Right again? Well, let me put on my other hat. That's my hope. I don't know if it'll happen. I don't know if it's even realistic, but that's my hope is that, you know, as more and more of us, our eyes are open to the horrors because it is on our front step that we're witnessing it, that we all collectively say enough of this horse shit. We don't want this. We want the thing that you promised this to be because I'm a veteran and it was beaten into my head. Almost literally, uh, the ideas of like freedom and democracy and These are what you're fighting for. And it never was. We were fighting for oil. We were fighting for fucking rich people to be more rich is what happened. So whenever somebody is like, oh, thank you for your service. I just want to be like, no, I didn't do anything. I didn't help you any. All I did is went to another country and brutalized them so that billionaires could have more oil and then charge us more for that oil.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Like the oil didn't even get cheaper. Yeah. The gas prices went up. Anyways, my point is that I think that we need to demand that the things that America claims to be is what we make it in the future. Like when they're talking about freedom and democracy and liberty and the pursuit of happiness and being the freest country and being the best. Oh my

SPEAKER_03:

God. Could we not be so obsessed with being the best and be more obsessed with everybody across the entire I don't know. Wild, wild. Yeah. I'm going to take like, I want to take like two minutes to be like, what do we want? I want universal basic income. I want everybody to have enough money to house themselves, feed themselves, close themselves and go on a vacation once a year. I want everybody to have at least a month off from work. I want a 20 hour work week because hello, the technology we have today, we're more productive than ever. Everybody deserves that. I want universal health care. I want decent education. I want the removal Yeah, that's

SPEAKER_01:

a big one.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And exploitation of other places so that, again, we do, yes, I absolutely benefit from that exploitation with cheap goods, but I think we could all live with a lot less and be a lot happier if we had that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, it's a big ask because that would require a complete restructuring of the entirety of America. Well-

SPEAKER_03:

being decimated. So it's like, this is an apocalypse of what, uh, how the United States functioned and was structured. And like, this is the opportunity. Can we please not just be like, let's have, we want to like claw back what we had and make it the same. No, this is our opportunity to make it better.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Um, let's, let's bring this back to the here and now because the, the reality is, is that because of the administration and their, uh, their own, uh, purpose, Purposeful violence against the people of this country. You are now unemployed.

SPEAKER_03:

Yay.

SPEAKER_01:

What's it been like?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I've cried a lot. I've wondered about whether we can keep our house and for how long. I have grieved the loss of the best job I've ever had. That's the other thing I want to say. I think that there is a risk that it could come off white-savory what I've been saying, like what my work was. And I want to be clear that I was one small cog in a giant wheel of people following the leadership of Black, Brown, and Native people to do this work. And I was paid well to do it. I had good benefits. I worked 40 hours a week, which frankly is a myth and a lot of salary jobs like ones I've had before. And so I had a good job. I was doing work that I cared about and believed in, and I was really happy. So to lose that overnight was... devastating. It is devastating. There's a lot of projects that I was working on that I felt really passionately about and felt really humbled to be a part of, and I'm not a part of them in that way anymore. So that's been heartbreaking and scary.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I think also the way that the country is going and how many industries are being completely gutted and how much unemployment is on the rise. It's a scary thing to have that rug pulled out from under you.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, for both of us. Unemployment is going to basically cover our ability to keep our house and our lights on. It doesn't cover things like this podcast. And at the end of the day, there are many, many important things that people could be putting their money towards. And if you don't have a ton of money right now, put it towards your own stuff you need. If there's other things that you got a little bit of money and you want to donate it to places that really need it, I'm probably not your first choice as the podcast. But if you are in a position like IU, where a few bucks, 20 bucks, five bucks is not going to hurt you to throw towards the podcast so we can continue a place of art and creativity and space and connection and amplifying indie zombie authors, talking about justice, thinking about how do we create a better world, then that would be awesome through our GoFundMe.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and we've talked a little bit about this on social media and stuff. This is the first time we're talking about it on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, if you found value in the podcast And you've got money jangling around your pocket that is not allocated anywhere. And if we had a Patreon, you would have thrown us some money anyways, then we would really appreciate some help right now because I don't want to stop selling book club podcast. But we would have to significantly reduce what we were doing and or end it as of 2026. If we don't get support, we're looking for six months of all of the fees. It's$183 a month to run this podcast and hard subscription costs. And if I get six months of that, then we can confidently plan for our 2026 season.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And people have been telling us for a long time that we should have some sort of crowdfunding option because there's so many costs involved. And for a long time, we didn't really care about that because we had the money to throw at it. And we were just happy to have this platform to talk to zombie authors and help them grow and do the same for us. Yeah. it's at that point where it's like oh now we kind of need it

SPEAKER_03:

yeah and that's really like as someone who I mean there's definitely been times where I've had no money I've lived without power I've been a couch surfer and not had a home for a while like we've you've been there too like we've both been on the brink in our earlier life and like I would say the last three years four years it's been really nice to be comfortable for a minute

SPEAKER_01:

it's the most comfortable time of my entire adult life

SPEAKER_03:

same and so for that to be gone is also psychologically like it's a blow like to be like I can't afford to donate I was donating money to a farm sanctuary Tom 10 farm and sanctuary every month it was actually my don't buy a horse fund because it was helping other horses because honestly I couldn't afford a horse when I had a horse yeah so not being able to do that having to be like I can't pay for these things that I used to enjoy anymore is humbling but I want to be again like the reality is we were really privileged financially for a few years and now we're not. We just have to adjust. Yeah. But it's hard.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. But you know what? Everything's going to be okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

In the end, everything will be okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. At this point, I've decided that it's not about making as much money as I was making. It's about making enough money, finding a job that makes enough money that I really enjoy and that I find meaningful or not. If I got to take a job that I hate to pay the bills, I will, but I'd prefer not to.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Because I have ADHD and I've learned that if it's not a job that I care about, I am bad at it. If I care about it, then you're going to get every part of me. But if I don't care, it's like somebody is nails on a chalkboard beside my ear constantly trying to get me to do work. I also want to say thank you. A number of people have already supported who are Zombesties of ours. I'm just going to read the list briefly. Okay. You want to go back and forth? Yeah. You go first. Dan.

SPEAKER_01:

Lori Calcaterra, creator of Path of the Pale Rider. Thank you. Thank you so much, Zombesty.

SPEAKER_03:

Marta Tomic. I love you. Thank you. You know who you are. John Alvarez. We've met John at Living Dead Weekend. Yeah. One of the best moments of Living Dead Weekend was getting to be, I hope, one day friends with John.

SPEAKER_01:

And actually, the note here says, thank you so much. Meeting you was one of the best things to come out of Living Dead Weekend. I probably should have read that first.

SPEAKER_03:

Jamie Lee Strollo. You're a dream. You have our undying love. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, Stephanie Grant, listeners of the dead, another podcaster. Um, uh, thank you. Podcast best TV. Love you.

SPEAKER_03:

Sarah Woolerman, another podcaster, Liz fellow podcasters coming out of the woodwork to help. Cause they know what this shit costs. Uh, bury me in New Jersey. Also who we met at living dead weekend. Oh, I didn't listen to this podcast. Sarah is freaking brilliant. And it's, um, really a powerful podcast. Thank you so much, Sarah

SPEAKER_01:

James. Who's, james

SPEAKER_03:

they didn't use their last name so i didn't put it there okay

SPEAKER_01:

uh james no last name just james um thank you so much you gorgeous zombie fan uh we appreciate you thanks for donating thank you so much

SPEAKER_03:

ding it shouldn't be making a sound because it's not on it I gotta fix it sorry Naila King oh Naila you know I friggin adore you and I really there are no words to describe my love for you the fact that you also give us a little bit of cash thank you really really appreciate it so glad that you're in our life look out for her slasher and other horror books coming soon

SPEAKER_01:

yeah also thanks for doing the write-ins every week yeah come join Join us. If it weren't for your write-ins, I wouldn't get any progress done during the work season. Candice Vandenberg, our undead hearts are beating for you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

Jack Callahan, author of Zombie Nerd and the Half-Term Harrowing, Lover of Beans. Our lives would be incomplete without you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, Jack. Cordae Constantine, author of Babysitter of the Apocalypse, the whole series.

SPEAKER_03:

And the Sundown series.

SPEAKER_01:

And the Sundown series. Your friendship means more than you could possibly know. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03:

Jill Davies, author of Dead North and many other books. Also, this is not cast directly, but shared some audio book codes with us so we could listen to her books. Oh. Which I'm really excited about. And those things help because Audible is one of the things we have to pay for. Yeah. Because neither of us can read with our eyes very well.

SPEAKER_01:

I have a especially hard time while I'm driving. Also, there was a few others who didn't leave their names, but Thank you as well. Greatly appreciate it, you random

SPEAKER_03:

randos. this happened it means way more than you know and again we do not expect a monetary donation it does not that does not mean more than the other ways you support us support us in whatever ways you can and you are able to we appreciate you this community is the reason the podcast still has a pulse

SPEAKER_01:

yeah if you weren't here neither would be

SPEAKER_03:

yeah uh

SPEAKER_01:

what what what does what does this mean for the future of the podcast what's what's our plans going forward

SPEAKER_03:

well right now thanks to all those people we just listed we have about three months of our subscription costs covered so we're looking to cover at least another three months so that means that we have podcast plan to the end of the year and one of the things that's coming up in our next couple episodes is actually a crossover episode with the amazing wicked words book club and podcast Sarah and Greg yeah they're really nice mutual friends with Joe Salazar yeah see it's all connected here it's amazing. And we're actually going to have two episodes with them about Warm Bodies, the book and the movie.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I'm almost done with the book. Oh, you haven't finished the book? Not yet.

SPEAKER_03:

I thought you finished it.

SPEAKER_01:

It was a rough week.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

well, yeah. I'm like a quarter... I have a quarter of the book left.

SPEAKER_03:

I will be honest and say I wasn't sure about it when I started and I fucking love it now. Yeah, it was a good book. It's really good. So if you have not read Warm Bodies and you would like to... be a part of that conversation with us and hearing about it, when we think about it, you should go pick it up. You can actually get a 13% discount from Death by TBR Books by using the code WICKED instead of buying it from Amazon thanks to Wicked Words Book Club. Fancy. Yeah. And if you don't know what Wicked Words is all about, like I said, it's hosted by Greg and Sarah. They're a very fun couple like us who run the Sinner Social Club. They call their community sinners, which I quite enjoy. I'm a sinner. I don't know about you, Dan. I've sinned A few times. They cover horror, thrillers, sci-fi, and then dive into the film or TV adaptations. They do really fun things like make cocktails to go with the books they're reading and playlists. There's a whole audio. If I was not listening to the audio book of Warm Bodies, I could have been reading it to a playlist that Sarah herself made for like mood vibes. Oh. About Warm Bodies, which is just epic. And they ask the very best questions when they do reviews. Is it ass or does it fuck?

SPEAKER_01:

Those are... Important questions.

SPEAKER_03:

So these are the things that you're supporting by listening to and supporting Zion Book Club podcast. Not every episode is going to be a downer like this one is. We just wanted to be real with you. So we've got that coming up. If you like Zion Book Club podcast, you will love Wicked Words. They're open hearted, smart, lots of horror nerd energy. And just like us, they stand with our trans LGBTQ plus community, black, brown and native folks, women and all marginalized communities. And they hex the patriarchy. So So obviously this is a match made in heaven. They are.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, good.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So the two episodes that are coming out with them is on September 28th is the warm bodies book review. And then October 12th is our movie discussion of warm bodies and even more cool. They have set up a meet and greet with Isaac Marion, the author of warm bodies on September 26th at 6 30 PM Eastern time on their discord. And they're doing a watch party, which we're going to be at for warm bodies movie on October 3rd at 8 PM Eastern all on their discord

SPEAKER_01:

i'm learning this right now

SPEAKER_03:

yeah me and sarah are texting buddies um dan and greg are busy working too much

SPEAKER_01:

yeah

SPEAKER_03:

so so sarah and i have been doing most of this and sarah is in charge of all the really awesome promotions so thank you and shout out to you for doing that sarah but it's going to be some fun episodes then we have some more stuff coming up like zombie ween game show season three yeah yeah

SPEAKER_01:

we're gonna have

SPEAKER_03:

a third king or queen or repeat we got sylvester and laurie you'll hear very soon who the other contestants are, it's gonna be vicious, everybody. Will Brandon Starocki be there from Summerween Slamdown? Will he show up? I don't know. We'll see. Maybe. And there's lots of other stuff happening. I am in the process of thinking through what the 2026 season could be, and I'm just feeling a little bit hesitant right now to be actively planning that, but we will be soon.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we will be. We've also got some interviews lined up. I won't go into details, but there's some interesting ones in there.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. 2025, the rest of 2025, we are funded and we are going to go balls out.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Get your balls out.

SPEAKER_03:

Pussy and balls.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Bring them out. Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

Bring your innies and outies.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, what

SPEAKER_03:

a fun episode, Leah. So fun. I mean, it got more fun at the end. It did. You know, that's how

SPEAKER_01:

a good story works. Should we have put this at

SPEAKER_03:

the beginning and then you had the sob story?

SPEAKER_01:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Probably not. I don't know. Um, thanks everybody for joining the zombie book club. Uh, you know, we talked about ways that you can support us. We've mentioned, we mentioned the, uh, go find me, but you can also give us a rating or review. Um, you can also send us a voicemail like the, the, the unnamed person earlier who told us about the grandmas and the construction gaggle of granny zombies, gaggle of granny zombies. Yeah. Uh, you can, you can call us at six one four six nine nine zero zero zero six. You can sign up for our newsletter and one day I'll send one out. I should probably take that over since I got time. You can also stay in touch with us if you follow us on Instagram at Zombie Book Club Podcast. We spend a lot of time there, actually. And you can join the Brain Mantras Collective Discord. All the links are down there in the description area that you can click on and you can go to those things that I just Hey,

SPEAKER_03:

Dan.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, sir. Since

SPEAKER_03:

I'm unemployed and depressed, would you sing the outro?

SPEAKER_01:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, my God. Really? Not even now? I don't like the singing outro. What would you do for our outro? The thing that we've always done. Where I sing it? No. Bye-bye, everybody. Bye-bye. The end is nigh. Baby, bye, bye, bye. No! Don't die. Unless you're somebody I really hate.

UNKNOWN:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

Then it's okay. Bye. Bye. You gotta keep that.

People on this episode

Contributor

Dan

Host
Contributor

Leah

Host