Lawless Planet

Drilled: How Greenpeace Got Sued for the Standing Rock Protests

Today, Lawless Planet brings you an episode from our friends at Drilled Media. Season 12 of their flagship podcast is called SLAPP’d, and it tells another side of a story we covered earlier in our episode “Surveillance and Sabotage on the Dakota Access Pipeline.”Greenpeace, which was only tangentially involved in the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, has been slapped with a $666 million bill for damages...despite the fact that DAPL was built, and has been making Energy Transfer millions of dollars for years. How did we get here? Cody Hall, an Indigenous water protector who was a key figure during the Standing Rock protests and was initially also targeted in Energy Transfer's suit, walks us through how things went down back in 2016 and 2017, and where this suit began.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Scamfluencers: The Solar Powered Scammer

We’re doing something different on Lawless Planet this week. We’re sharing an episode from our friends Scamfluencers — a show that unpacks the wildest true stories of high-profile scams and the con artists behind them.When Jeff Carpoff starts a business making portable solar generators, it becomes an instant hit among big corporations, Hollywood studios, and deep-pocketed investors. They think they’re getting a good deal on green energy – and a huge tax credit to go along with it. But Jeff’s clients don’t realize that he’s been playing them. And when he flies too close to the sun, it’ll blow the fuse on his whole operation.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Europe Had a Plan to Reduce Carbon Emissions. Scammers Fleeced It for Billions

When scam artist Gregory Zaoui got out of prison in 2004, he had a plan to go straight – by selling solar panels. But when he learned about a new carbon trading system that was supposed to reduce CO2 emissions, he saw an obvious loophole. And soon, he found himself at the center of a fraud scheme so extensive that it was hard to tell if the carbon market was doing anything to fight climate change at all.Featured in this episode:Jessica Camille AguirreSources:Jessica Camille Aguirre’s reporting in The Atavaist Magazine: https://magazine.atavist.com/2024/watch-it-burn-france-europe-carbon-fraud-scam-vat-betrayal Alec Henry’s podcast “Le Déclic” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkYkJiFl8PgSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Shipbreaking: Inside the World’s Most Dangerous Job

When oil tankers, freighters and cruise ships reach the end of their lives, nearly all wind up on just three beaches in South Asia. There, unskilled workers earning just a few dollars a day tear them apart with hand tools and blowtorches, to be sold as scrap. The shipbreaking industry has remained unchanged for decades, despite its well-documented dangers to the environment and worker safety. But after a deadly explosion in Pakistan, and a risky investigation in Bangladesh, are changes finally coming?Special thanks to:Julia Bleckner and Human Rights Watch: https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/09/28/trading-lives-profit/how-shipping-industry-circumvents-regulations-scrap-toxic Ingvild Jenssen and NGO Shipbreaking Platform: https://shipbreakingplatform.org/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Is Russia Training Dolphin Soldiers? (Are We?)

Humans have a long history of deploying wild beasts in wartime, from horse-mounted cavalry to Hannibal riding into Rome on an elephant. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, a mysterious group of dolphins appeared in the Black Sea. It signaled a return to an old program that many thought had died with the fall of the Soviet Union. For years, the USSR trained dolphins to advance their military goals. And so did America. Special thanks to:Pavel GoldinSergei Dobrynin and Mark KrutovBlair IrvineSources:Frontline’s The Story of Navy Dolphins: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/whales/etc/navycron.htmlBBC's Secrets of the Spy Whale: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002504pSergei Dobrynin and Mark Krutov’s reporting: https://www.svoboda.org/a/31006448.htmlSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.