Poppy Liu
Poppy Liu (Hacks, I Love Boosters) joins Esteban in the sauna to talk about fairy smut and air pollution and yes somehow that makes sense.
HOSTED BY Esteban Gast
DIRECTED BY Stoney Sharp
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR / EDITOR Connor Linnerooth
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Adam McKay, Staci Roberts-Steele, Anna Wenger, Jessie Bluedorn, Esteban Gast
GUEST Poppy Liu
PRODUCER Stoney Sharp, Carl Fieler
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER Brittney Badduke
CONSULTING PRODUCER Elijah Zarlin
DP / CAMERA OPERATOR Connor Linnerooth
SOUND Brandon Cruz
SET MEDIC Paul Joubran
SPECIAL THANKS to Big Oil for being so sneaky and evil that we had to make a show about their disinformation and lies.
FACTS, REFERENCES, AND MORE
AIR POLLUTION FROM OIL, COAL, AND GAS KILLS MORE THAN 8 MILLION PEOPLE A YEAR
- Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — “Fossil Fuel Air Pollution Responsible for 1 in 5 Deaths Worldwide.”
- The Guardian’s news coverage of the study
AIR POLLUTION IS A WORSE RISK FACTOR THAN SMOKING OR POOR DIET — YET WE SPEND BILLIONS COMBATTING SMOKING AND OBESITY WHILE IGNORING FOSSIL FUELS
- Oxford — “Loss of life expectancy from air pollution compared to other risk factors: a worldwide perspective.”
- CBS News — “Dirty air is biggest external threat to human health, worse than tobacco or alcohol, major study finds.” The Global Fund disburses $4 billion annually for HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, there is no equivalent global funding mechanism for air pollution — despite it being a larger killer
NEIGHBORHOODS WITH ELECTRIC VEHICLES HAVE REDUCED ASTHMA RATES — BUT THE GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIZES FOSSIL FUEL CARS INSTEAD OF EVS
- USC Keck School of Medicine — the landmark first real-world study linking EV adoption to reductions in air pollution and asthma ER visits in California
- Science of the Total Environment
- American Lung Association — State of the Air 2023: “Full EV electrification by 2050 could prevent 89,300 premature deaths, 2.2 million asthma attacks, and save $978 billion in public health costs.”
- Environment International (2017) — Traffic-related air pollution (NO2, PM2.5, black carbon) is statistically associated with childhood asthma development across dozens of independent studies.
OTHER MEDIA
- Unbreathable: The Fight for Healthy Air (2020) History of the Clean Air Act with present-day stories of environmental injustice.
- Poisoned (PBS Frontline / Tampa Bay Times, 2020) Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into a Tampa lead smelter poisoning its workers and surrounding community.
- Earth Focus: Fighting for Air (PBS, 2022) How the explosion of Amazon warehouses and diesel trucks is making children sick in real time in the Inland Empire of Southern California — now the most polluted region in the U.S.
- Clearing the Air: The War on Smog (PBS, 2022) The history of how Los Angeles fought — and partly won — its battle against fossil fuel smog.
- Drilled a podcast by Amy Westervelt. Season 6 “The Bridge to Nowhere” is about the health and air pollution consequences of the fossil fuel industry’s pivot to methane gas.
