Justice Matters

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates speaks with climate entrepreneur Josh Dorfman about his more than two decades building sustainable businesses.Josh Dorfman is co-founder and CMO of Plantd, a carbon-negative building materials company named to Fast Company’s 2024 list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Prior to this, he founded Vivavi, a modern sustainable furniture company; launched and led Vine.com, Amazon’s business unit for natural, organic, and sustainable products; and created and hosted The Lazy Environmentalist, which expanded into television, radio, books, and national brand partnerships. He currently hosts the podcast Supercool that explores the companies, technologies, and ideas shaping the low-carbon economy.In this conversation they discuss: building sustainable businesses, carbon negative building materials, challenges and innovations to creating a sustainable supply chain, the importance of product performance, transparency in environmentalism, the challenges of consumer culture in adopting sustainable practices, the role of AI in developing climate solutions, the need for individuals to engage in local climate justice efforts, and Josh’s personal evolution as an environmentalist. 

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Timothy Patrick McCarthy speaks with Jamie Keene—former Special Assistant to the President for Equality and Opportunity in the Biden-Harris White House—about the state of gender equality in America on the eve of the midterm elections. Topics they discuss include: federal policy on racial justice and equity, the power and limits of executive orders, authoritarian consolidation, the role of elections, congress and the courts, public resistance, white christian nationalism, anti-LGBTQ+ policy in America, the global anti-gender movement, federal vs. state power in protecting civil rights, identity politics and multiracial democracy, corporate DEI, the midterms, rebuilding public institutions, the power of community resistance and the example of Minneapolis, and hope as a discipline. Jamie Keene is a policy leader on civil rights, democracy, and racial and economic justice. She served in the Biden-Harris White House as Special Assistant to the President for Equality and Opportunity, where she was the first commissioned officer appointed to advance LGBTQI+ equality. She was also one of the architects and implementers of the administration’s historic equity agenda. Jamie has been an advisor on presidential transitions and campaigns on a range of policy issues, and has served in local government for the cities of DC and LA. Jamie is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and Economic Security Project, as well as the Carr-Ryan Center, where her research explores how escalating attacks on queer and trans communities in the United States are linked with rising authoritarianism at home and around the world.

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Kathi Zellweger and Mike Chinoy about the recent book they co-authored, “Miss Kathi: Saving Lives in North Korea”.Kathi Zellweger is a Swiss aid worker who gained unprecedented access to North Korea over her decades of work in the country. Between 1995 and 2019, she made over seventy five trips to North Korea, including living in Pyongyang for five years as the country director for the Swiss government's development agency. Mike Chinoy is a CNN foreign correspondent who has also spent significant time in the country making over seventeen trips to North Korea in his reporting of several books, including “Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis”.In this conversation the discuss: how Kathi came to spend so much time as an aid worker in North Korea, Mike and Kathi’s collaboration on the memoir, the impact of the famine on North Korean society, Mike’s reporting trips to the country, challenges to aid delivery in a secrecy driven regime, the evolution of North Korean society, and their personal reflections on the book's purpose and message.https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Miss-Kathi/Kathi-Zellweger/9798895656716

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Maggie Gates speaks with journalist Sara Kehaulani Goo about her new book, Kuleana, a memoir about her ancestral land in Hawaii that touches on themes of indigenous rights, land loss, and the generational responsibility of honoring the land.Sara is a journalist and senior news executive who has led several national news organizations including Axios, NPR and The Washington Post. She is now serving as President of the WP Creator network at The Washington Post, a new business outside the newsroom focused on content partnerships with independent creators. She formerly served as editor-in-chief at Axios, where she launched the company’s editorial expansion into national and local newsletters, podcasts and live journalism. Before Axios, she led online audience growth as a managing editor at NPR, overseeing the newsroom's digital news operation. Goo started her career as a reporter for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.On today’s episode they discuss: the crisis of land loss in Hawaii, the native Hawaiian concept of Kuleana or generational responsibility, honoring the place you’re from through land stewardship, clashes with western capitalism, the effect of wealth disparity on native Hawaiians, the impact of tax policy on land ownership, parallels of land loss across cultures, and the wider meanings of ancestral responsibility. https://www.saragoo.com/

On today’s episode of Justice Matters, co-host Mathias Risse speaks with Dr. Eileen Carter, a white South African human rights lawyer and provincial manager of the South African Human Rights Commission in the Eastern Cape, about race relations in her country in the 21st century.Together they discuss: Dr. Carter’s own life and work that led her to human rights law, race relations in the Eastern Cape, understanding her own privilege and responsibility as a white South African, discoveries about her own ancestry, the impact of the US refugee policy on South Africa, the economic realities of the country post-apartheid, and realistic hopes for the next decade.Dr. Eileen Carter is a South African human rights lawyer who has dedicated her career to children's rights, socioeconomic rights, and the rights of marginalized communities in her home country. Her current focus is on developing technologies and their impacts on human rights. She earned her law degree at the University of Pretoria and is currently the Provincial Manager of the South African Human Rights Commission in the Eastern Cape - an independent constitutional body charged with promoting, monitoring and protecting human rights in the country.