Fired up about extreme weather & climate change + #SayTheirNames with DCP Entertainment
Sounds Like Impact: A newsletter for audio and action - Vol. 13
Welcome to Sounds Like Impact!
This week we have an incredibly vulnerable interview with Chris Colbert and Adell Coleman from DCP Entertainment about their podcast Say Their Name and navigating trauma in the reporting of police brutality. We also have a curation on extreme weather in the age of the climate crisis.
👋🏾 So many new folks join us this past week; welcome! Thank you for joining the #SoundsLikeImpact community. Please introduce yourself here or in the comments!
To catch up, I recommend checking out the about page and reading this ICYMI.
And to my other subscribers, I know this edition is arriving later than normal with some minor changes (no pod.links, podcast covers). I’ve been battling a flare up from a chronic illness for the past week so I’m quite behind on things. Forgive me!
Announcements:
🫂 I want to give a special shoutout to our latest paid subscriber, Finessa J!
And I’ve been asked, if it’s technically a FREE newsletter, what are you accepting donations for? Great question!
Yes, the newsletter is free but there are expenses related to producing the newsletter (e.g. Airtable, Descript) so subscribing or advertising helps cover those costs. To that point I’m currently freelancer, so I would be grateful if some or all of those costs could be reader supported.
$ helps me expand the offerings associated with Sounds Like Impact. A couple of my goals are to eventually be able to give grants to creators that want to scale the impact of their work, offer workshops on impactful storytelling, and create community moments (e.g. virtual events).
But I get it. There are lot of newsletters and other media out there that are competing for your funds, which may already be tight because inflation and just trying to survive. I get it, and I’m just as appreciative of likes, shares and comments. However, for the month of July, I’d really appreciate you filling out this anonymous survey.
🙌 Keeping the faith: The American Medical Association says the BMI, or body mass index, is racist. The first issue of Sounds Like Impact was about weight stigma, so this pronouncement is really is welcome news. Intersectional lens all day, everyday.
🎧 #AudioForAction Theme of the Week
Nothing natural about it: surviving climate change’s impact on weather
“Natural disasters: increasingly feels like a tricky term to describe what has been happening around the world. Earth has been the hottest ever with record-breaking temperatures peaking this very month.
I had this topic in mind since April because I thought of hurricane and wildfire seasons in the summer; I could not have predicted that scientists would be really scared record setting temperatures and fire smoke in New York City (where I’m based) were going to happen within the span of a month. But that’s because things are CHANGING, and there is nothing natural about it.
I don’t want to be all doom and gloom here, but the reality is we need to understand what is happening with our climate while also keeping in mind that there are vulnerabilities we need to be considering. A few for your consideration or as a reminder:
Lower-income countries facing some of the biggest impacts for a problem they did not create.
People with disabilities already navigating planning structures that are inconsiderate.
Those who are incarcerated being forced to suffer inhumane living conditions and treatment (e.g. being told they won’t be evacuated from fires; not having cooling in extremely hot climates, fighting wildfires for extremely exploitative pay).
I could go on, but I’ll stop there. There is already so much to take in, but there are solutions, we just need to adopt them.
This playlist is a bit of a choose your own adventure. I provided more options than usual (big topic!) but hopefully there is a little something for everyone.
File under: Explainers
Ologies with Alie Ward, Meteorology (WEATHER & CLIMATE) with Marshall Shepherd
TILclimate, TILclimate about winter storms
Life With Fire Podcast, Fire Ecology 101 with Dr. Susan Prichard
This recommendation came from host Amanda Monthei; thanks Amanda!
File under: We’ve got to do better
File under: Solutions-oriented listening
WSJ’s The Future of Everything, How Do You Make Hurricane Forecasts Better? Send In the Drones
Unrelated but related: a write-up of a program in Malawi about participatory weather forecasting
The Climate Question, Is Barbados’s climate finance plan a game-changer?
NerdWallet’s Smart Money Podcast, The Cost of Climate Change: Preparing for the Worst
Did you know that State Farm stopped accepting new homeowner’s insurance applications in California due to wildfires?
🚨 Calls to Action
Apply: Climate Democracy Accelerator (Global) due July 15th. The Climate Democracy Accelerator (CDA) is a six-month, practice-oriented training and support program that prepares members to plan and implement an inclusive and participatory process for a just climate transition.
Share: The HEY Global Climate Fund due July 17th. They are funding projects led by people between the ages of thirteen 13 and 27. Maybe it applies to you, but if it doesn’t, please share!
Pitch: Life with Fire by August 1. Early career audio storytellers who live in a community that has been uniquely impacted by wildfire should do so!
Read: Continuing the theme of intersectionality,
This post on the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America site “Just Breathe: wildfire smoke and climate justice”
“What People With Disabilities Know About Surviving Climate Disasters” ($ paywall, though click to see if it’s available to you)
The “Rest in Power” section of Possibilities. This section memorializes those who lost their lives to natural disasters, likely due to climate change —but as writer Yessenia Funes points out, we’d need attribution modeling to really say.
“US Forest Service and historically Black colleges unite to boost diversity in wildland firefighting”
Record High from Grist, a short-run newsletter on extreme heat.
Your Local Epidemiologist I’m still an environmental public health nerd and while this Substack is not exclusively about this aspect of public health, a couple of their recent posts (like this on the rise of malaria in the US and this about heat-related illness) have touched on the nexus between our changing climate and health. And it was a pleasant surprise to see this edition was a guest post with Colin Carlson, a fellow Truman Scholar from my year!
📣 Spotlight
DCP Entertainment is your destination for the underrepresented voice. We share stories you won't find anywhere else. Giving a platform to People of Color, Women and LGBTQ+ communities, as well as highlighting stories around mental health, disability and overcoming adversity, DCP presents stories that we can all relate to. With a focus on improving the world around us, DCP’s podcasts and video series go beyond entertainment and provide perspectives and lessons that can create positive movements.
In the States we just had Independence Day, a day that is complicated for many whose rights have been restricted or ignored. This week also happens to be the 10-year anniversary of #BlackLivesMatter, so I was glad I had the opportunity to interview Chris and Adell from DCP Entertainment about their podcast Say Their Name, especially at a time when public support for Black Lives Matter has dropped considerably according to Pew Research Center. It seems virtue signaling isn’t sustainable?! So instead of sharing an excerpt like I usually do, I want you to go to their interview page to read and/or hear a really important conversation.
🌟 Classifieds
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⏭ Coming Up
A guest curation from Jaime Albright, the producer of Freeway Phantom and an interview with Tenijah Hamilton of Bring Birds Back!
To learn about pitching episodes, guest curations or interviews, click here.
🤗 An act of joy: Celebrate Brooklyn’s free concert series this past Saturday featured Kelela, a favorite artist of mine. I’ve now seen her twice!
Want to share your Act of Joy to be featured? Submit!
Take care of yourselves! And if you listen or take any actions, be sure to let me know in the comments or via email soundslikeimpact [at] unofficialsocialchair [dot] com.