Data Dialogues (Michelle Cheripka, Open Environmental Data Project, Madhuri Karak)

Climate information exists in a lot of different formats: there are reports, datasets, peer reviewed research articles, blogs, videos, and more. If we're going to have a real shot at tackling the climate crisis, then the knowledge we've produced about climate change needs to be open—but how do we give permission while protecting creators from harm?. In this episode, Madhuri Karak speaks with Monica Granados, who leads the Open Climate campaign at Creative Commons, about the role of licenses in building climate resilience.

In this episode, we look into the painstaking compilation of data previously inaccessible and scattered between different government agencies, that is finally shedding light on an extractive industry with massive environmental climate and livelihood consequences: sand mining. In this episode, Madhuri Karak speaks with Siddharth Agarwal about India Sand Watch, an environmental accountability project with an open data platform at its heart.

Los datos son una pieza clave para que las comunidades puedan reclamar sus derechos y recursos, y la ausencia de datos puede dificultar ese proceso. En este episodio, la presentadora Madhuri Karak habla con José Luis Rengifo, director del Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN) y Omaira Bolaños, directora de los Programas de América Latina y Justicia de Género de la Iniciativa de Derechos y Recursos (RRI). José Luis y Omaira son dos representantes de una coalición que lleva décadas trabajando en pos de los derechos territoriales de las comunidades afrodescendientes en el Caribe y América Latina.

In this epsiode, Madhuri traces the global origins of OneMap and why institutions across the board, from corporate actors to civil society organizations, thought a map could usher in a new era of land governance in Indonesia. You’ll hear from journalist Bagja Hidayat, policy researcher Myrna Safitry, social scientist Micah Fisher, policy advocate Anne-Sophie Gindroz, and sustainability expert Gita Syahrani.

In this episode, you’ll meet anthropologist Sophie Chao and a few others you’ve already encountered earlier in the season - social scientist Micah Fisher, political ecologist Irendra Radjawali and scholar Rini Astuti. We discuss the limitations of modern cartography and what we miss when we privilege the visual above all other perspectives.

Sof Petros, an organizer with Future Coalition, teaches youth climate activists how to source and use quality data that will help them be more effective in their work. Sof and Angela Eaton think on different ways people can participate in climate justice - especially by asking: we pay scientists for their work so why wouldn't we pay organizers?

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then bring them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Muki Haklay's conversation in Episode 14 and Sof and Muki's dialogue in Episode 15.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

Sof Petros (she/her) is an environmental educator and organizer at Future Coalition. Sof has worked on fossil fuel divestment campaigns and helps youth organizers build community and gain skills in the environmental movement.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

Open Tallahassee founder Shelby Green joins host Angela Eaton on our first Data Dialogues to talk about her experiences sourcing inaccessible data (we're talking "Request a CD-ROM from your local government in 2021" inaccessible...) to map traffic accidents in her Tallahassee community. 

Shelby Green is passionate about traffic safety — so much so that she makes a promise to her partner to get home safely every day. Shelby and Angela talk about how Shelby started Open Tallahassee and mapped every accident large and small with data from 10 years of inaccessible police reports. 

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then put them in conversation with each other. Listen to Shelby's conversation on its own or pair it with Marccus Hendricks' conversation in Episode 2 or Shelby & Marccus' dialogue together in Episode 3.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

Shelby Green (she/her) is the founder of Open Tallahassee, a community organization using local government data in combination with community submissions and traffic accidents, to heal, share information and, importantly, to create a Vision Zero future for her city through public participation and policy change.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

What’s the best time to make change in your environment? Sof Petros and Muki Haklay come together with Angela Eaton to talk about conflicting climate choices, investing in youth activists, and supporting environmental work in every stage of life.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then bring them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Sof Petros's conversation in Episode 13 and Muki Haklay's conversation in Episode 14.

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

Sof Petros (she/her) is an environmental educator and organizer at Future Coalition. Sof has worked on fossil fuel divestment campaigns and helps youth organizers build community and gain skills in the environmental movement.

Muki Haklay (he/him) is in the Department of Geography at UCL, University College London. He’s interested in issues of environmental information and public access use and creation and co-founded Mapping for Change and the Extreme Citizen Science Research group, or ExCiteS.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

Darrah Blackwater breaks down how she connects Native people to their sovereign rights by advocating for broadband, radio waves, and other airwaves to be recognized as a natural resource.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then bring them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Tico Arans's conversation in Episode 10 and Tico and Darrah's dialogue in Episode 12.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

 

Darrah Blackwater (she/her) is an Indigenous Law and Policy Fellow at the University of Arizona working on securing spectrum sovereignty rights for Native nations. She spent a year of law school working on tribal issues in Washington D.C., and has assisted in building multiple community networks in Indigenous communities.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

In our last episode, we get into what happens when mapping is stuck in bureaucratic limbo. In order to document harm from rampant resource extraction and loss of livelihoods, communities are turning to monitoring their environments. You’ll hear from lawyer Andiko Mancayo, policy expert Anne-Sophie Gindroz, and several others you’ll recognize from earlier in the season.

Gwen Smith and Michael Ogletree get right into the thorny parts of how government and local communities work and don't work with environmental data, in their full conversation with Angela.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then bring them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Gwen Smith's conversation in Episode 7 and Michael Ogletree's conversation in Episode 8.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

Gwen Smith (she/her) is a community leader in the historically Black community of Collier Heights, Atlanta and the founder of Community Health Aligning Revitalization Resilience & Sustainability (CHARRS). Gwen uses community-driven water quality and radon science, monitoring, and awareness to connect people to their environment and works with local and federal governments in their efforts to put communities first.

Michael Ogletree (he/him) is the former Technical Air Services Program Manager in the City & County of Denver’s Department of Public Health & Environment. He is the city lead on Love My Air Denver, one of the 2018 Bloomberg Mayors Challenge winning ideas. Love My Air involves deployment of low-cost air sensors at public schools along with real time data dashboards, education, and programming, to reduce the long-term health and economic impacts from exposure to poor air quality.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

Together in their full dialogue with Angela, Daphne Frias & Jarah Moesch swap stories about disability-related air travel data (or lack thereof) and bemoan the way things break when you look for quick fixes, whether it comes to climate change, disability access, or data visualization.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then put them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Daphne Frias's conversation in Episode 4 and Jarah Moesch's conversation in Episode 5.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

Daphne Frias (she/her) is a 24-year-old youth activist. She is unapologetically Latina. Having Cerebral Palsy, and using a wheelchair to ambulate, she is fiercely proud to be a loud champion for the disabled community. She got her start shortly after the Parkland shooting by busing 100+ students from her college campus to the nearest March For Our Lives (MFOL) event. In August of 2019, she was appointed as the NY State Director for March For Our Lives.

Jarah Moesch (they/she) is an artist-scholar whose work explores issues of justice through the design, production, and acquisition of embodied knowledges. Jarah’s research incorporates queer crip theory, cultural studies, art, and design practices to develop new models for justice and to imagine new worlds.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

When we first start learning about something, Wikipedia is often our first stop. But where does Wikipedia fit in when it comes to climate change - a complex, multi-dimensional, and urgent topic like no other? In this episode, Madhuri speaks with Evelin Heidel, the Program Director of Wikimedistas de Uruguay about how Wikipedia lays the groundwork for our understanding of climate change.

Muki Haklay, a geography professor at University College of London (UCL), thinks of environmental information as "an object of wonder" and speaks with Angela about healthy knowledge exchange at the Extreme Citizen Science Lab between local environmental monitors and UCL researchers.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then bring them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Sof Petros's conversation in Episode 13 and Sof and Muki's dialogue in Episode 15.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

Muki Haklay (he/him) is in the Department of Geography at UCL, University College London. He’s interested in issues of environmental information and public access use and creation and co-founded Mapping for Change and the Extreme Citizen Science Research group, or ExCiteS.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

Community members should not have to be "extraordinary" to access their rights. Jill Habig, founder of Public Rights Project, uses the law to change economic and environmental systems that allow only extraordinary individuals to defy them. In this episode, she shares ways that she's found local governments, by listening just a little differently, have strengthened their bonds with communities and protected the environment.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then bring them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Natasha Udu-gama's conversation in Episode 16 and Natasha and Jill's dialogue in Episode 18.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

 

Jill Habig (she/her) founded Public Rights Project, a non-profit working with communities and all levels of government to proactively support civil rights.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

In his role as public servant, Michael Ogletree thinks a lot about ways that people use data, both personally and collectively, and talks with Angela about his efforts to increase trust between local air quality agencies and communities in Colorado through the Love My Air Denver program.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then put them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Gwen Smith's conversation in Episode 7 and Gwen & Michael's dialogue in Episode 9.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

Michael Ogletree (he/him) is the former Technical Air Services Program Manager in the City & County of Denver’s Department of Public Health & Environment. He is the city lead on Love My Air Denver, one of the 2018 Bloomberg Mayors Challenge winning ideas. Love My Air involves deployment of low-cost air sensors at public schools along with real time data dashboards, education, and programming, to reduce the long-term health and economic impacts from exposure to poor air quality.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

Natasha Udu-gama, of AGU's Thriving Earth Exchange, connects residents to professional scientists to answer local environmental questions. Surprise (for anyone working with Western science)! Natasha challenges us to look “further than data” to find the best information and considers how we can repurpose the knowledge we already have.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then bring them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Jill Habig's conversation in Episode 17 and Natasha and Jill's dialogue in Episode 18.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

Natasha Udu-gama (she/her) is the Community and International Relations Manager at Thriving Earth Exchange, an organization that brings together local leaders and scientists to create community based environmental solutions.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

Who is responsible for brokering information? What does meaningful public dialogue look like? How does this affect and reflect Black and brown communities in the U.S.? Shelby Green & Marccus Hendricks talk through these questions and more in their full dialogue with Angela.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then put them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Shelby Green's conversation in Episode 1 and Marccus Hendricks' conversation in Episode 2.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

Shelby Green (she/her) is the founder of Open Tallahassee, a community organization using local government data in combination with community submissions and traffic accidents, to heal, share information and, importantly, to create a Vision Zero future for her city through public participation and policy change.

Marccus Hendricks (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and the Director of the Stormwater Infrastructure Resilience and Justice Lab (SIRJ)  at the University of Maryland.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

In their full dialogue with Angela, Tico Aran & Darrah Blackwater connect waterways with airwaves, talking through the importance of local knowledge and how to get people to care about the physicality of something that's hard to grasp: invertebrate oysters + invisible spectrum.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then bring them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Tico Arans's conversation in Episode 10 and Tico and Darrah's dialogue in Episode 12.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

Albert ”Tico” Aran (he/him) founded Watershed Action Lab, a project connecting local people to the Biscayne Bay in Miami, Florida through soil health, water quality, and community action. Tico has worked with communities and people who make their living directly from the land in the United States, Latin America and Asia.

Darrah Blackwater (she/her) is an Indigenous Law and Policy Fellow at the University of Arizona working on securing spectrum sovereignty rights for Native nations. She spent a year of law school working on tribal issues in Washington D.C., and has assisted in building multiple community networks in Indigenous communities.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

Season 3 of Data Dialogues features interviews with different folks working at the intersection of the open and climate movements. In the trailer, host Madhuri Karak outlines what you can expect from this season's guests.

Who is a leader and who can be a spokesperson for a community? Gwen Smith, founder of Atlanta's CHARRS, and Angela discuss ways to increase community participation and share the load with government in environmental justice work.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then put them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Michael Ogletree's conversation in Episode 8 and Gwen and Michael's dialogue in Episode 9.

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

Gwen Smith (she/her) is a community leader in the historically Black community of Collier Heights, Atlanta and the founder of Community Health Aligning Revitalization Resilience & Sustainability (CHARRS). Gwen uses community-driven water quality and radon science, monitoring, and awareness to connect people to their environment and works with local and federal governments in their efforts to put communities first.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data Project and host of Data Dialogues.

In this episode, you’ll hear indigenous leader Effendi Buhing from the village of Kinipan in Central Kalimantan, our interpreter Ayu Septiari who translated between Indonesian Bahasa and English, and we talk about Kinipan’s ongoing fight to save its land and forest from the palm oil company PT. Sawit Mandari Lestari, or PT-SML.

What does it take for scientists and lawyers to really work with communities - and how does it change them? In the final episode of Season 1, Angela talks with Natasha Udu-gama and Jill Habig about how they set up the conditions for community relationships, making the case for personal transformation and culture change in government, academia, and the law.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then bring them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Natasha Udu-gama's conversation in Episode 16 and Jill Habig's conversation in Episode 17.

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

Natasha Udu-gama (she/her) is the Community and International Relations Manager at Thriving Earth Exchange, an organization that brings together local leaders and scientists to create community based environmental solutions.‍

Jill Habig (she/her) founded Public Rights Project, a non-profit working with communities and all levels of government to proactively support civil rights.

‍Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

We need to burn fewer and fewer fossil fuels to keep greenhouse gas emissions low and ensure the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold isn't breached. But can we manage and reduce something that we didn't measure accurately in the first place? National governments signed the Paris agreement to limit global warming and cut emissions, but the data on fossil fuels—how much there is, how much was burned, and how much of it is in reserve—all of that information comes from... fossil fuel companies. In this episode, Madhuri Karak speaks with Johnny West, an architect of the Global Registry of Fossil Fuels, who is trying to change that.

What does it mean to take back knowledge and data about our environments, from the hands of those who monopolize this knowledge for centuries, and use that knowledge to extract value from land and people alike? In this episode, Madhuri Karak speaks with Scott Eustis, the community science director at Healthy Gulf, about what taking back ownership of knowledge and data about our landscapes, our bodies, looks like in the Gulf Coast of the US.

In this bonus episode for Season 3, Madhuri Karak speaks with Michelle Thorne (Green Web Foundation) and Shannon Dosemagen (Open Environmental Data Project), two co-founders of Open Climate. Together, they delve into curated collision, a knowledge commons for climate information, and the importance of open for climate action.

Professor Marccus Hendricks and Angela talk about what it means to be a scholar, public servant and city planner when you're working towards social equity and community partnership.

Marccus Hendricks works with the public and every level of government to get the most from stormwater infrastructure data.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then put them in conversation with each other. Listen to Marccus' conversation on its own or pair it with Shelby Green's conversation in Episode 1 or Shelby & Marccus' dialogue together in Episode 3.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

Marccus Hendricks (he) is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and the Director of the Stormwater Infrastructure Resilience and Justice Lab (SIRJ)  at the University of Maryland. He holds a Masters in Public Health and a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Science both from Texas A&M University. 

Angela Eaton (she) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data Project and host of Data Dialogues

Data is a key piece of how communities make claims on rights and resources—and the absence of data can make that claims making process difficult. In this episode, host Madhuri Karak speaks with Jose Luis Rengifo, the director of the Process of Black Communities (PCN) and Omaira Bolaños, the director of the Latin America and Gender Justice Programs at Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). Jose Luis and Omaira are two representatives of a decades-long coalition effort seeking territorial rights for Afro-descendant communities across the Caribbean and Latin America.

Disabled youth climate activist Daphne Frias has a lot to say about gatekeeping in the environmental movement, from the lack of information in Spanish to disabled communities' inability to access data about themselves. In this episode of Data Dialogues, Daphne and Angela discuss (in English) the importance of personal stories in bringing solutions to our problems.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then put them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Jarah Moesch's conversation in Episode 5 and Daphne & Jarah's dialogue in Episode 6.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

Daphne Frias (she/her) is a 24-year-old youth activist. She is unapologetically Latina. Having Cerebral Palsy, and using a wheelchair to ambulate, she is fiercely proud to be a loud champion for the disabled community. She got her start shortly after the Parkland shooting by busing 100+ students from her college campus to the nearest March For Our Lives (MFOL) event. In August of 2019, she was appointed as the NY State Director for March For Our Lives.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

Dr. Jarah Moesch & Angela reflect on the ways members of the disabled community leverage online spaces to participate in environmental justice efforts, respond to climate events, and participate in all parts of the design process.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then bring them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Daphne Frias' conversation in Episode 4 and Daphne & Jarah's dialogue in Episode 6.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

Jarah Moesch (they/she) is an artist-scholar whose work explores issues of justice through the design, production, and acquisition of embodied knowledges. Jarah’s research incorporates queer crip theory, cultural studies, art, and design practices to develop new models for justice and to imagine new worlds.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

In Episode 3, Madhuri speaks with Jaringan Kerja Pemetaan Partisipatif, or the Indonesian Community Mapping Network’s Imam Hanafi, Muhammad Husen, and Imam Masud, and the former secretary of Indonesia's Indigenous Peoples Alliance, Abdon Nababan.

OpenAQ: https://openaq.org/#/

OpenAQ Explorer: https://explore.openaq.org/

Predicting What We Breathe: https://airquality.lacity.gov/

World Health Organization Ambient Air Quality and Health fact sheet: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(outdoor)-air-quality-and-health

Tico Aran, founder of Watershed Action Lab in Miami, talks with Angela about the communal efforts in Biscayne Bay to create habitats for the Eastern Oyster, a keystone species once prevalent up and down the coasts of North and South America. The result: improved water quality, more biodiversity, and a return to play for the next generation of local kids.

In Data Dialogues, we highlight two people working with environmental data and then bring them in conversation with each other. Listen to this conversation on its own or pair it with Darrah Blackwater's conversation in Episode 11 and Tico and Darrah's dialogue in Episode 12.  

You can access a transcript of this episode and Show Notes on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter @OpenEnviroData and Instagram @OpenEnviroData!

 

Albert ”Tico” Aran (he/him) founded Watershed Action Lab, a project connecting local people to the Biscayne Bay in Miami, Florida through soil health, water quality, and community action. Tico has worked with communities and people who make their living directly from the land in the United States, Latin America and Asia.

Angela Eaton (she/her) is the Director of Data Inclusion at Open Environmental Data  and host of Data Dialogues.

The latest UN IPCC report (AR6) runs... 30,000 pages. For those of us who don't have the time to read this in full, how do we incorporate the golden standard of climate science into our own work? In this episode, Madhuri speaks with Shweata Hegde, a developer at #semanticClimate, who is building a tool that will break AR6 down and turn it into an accessible resource.

In this episode, you’ll hear from some folks you met in episode 1: journalist Bagja Hidayat, social scientist Micah Fisher, policy advocate Anne-Sophie Gindroz. Two new voices include political ecologist Irendra Radjawali and scholar Rini Astuti. Together with Madhuri, they dig deeper into the post-Suharto era in Indonesia, and the political conjuncture that created the perfect set of conditions for OneMap to emerge.