Join us.

We’re working to create a just society and preserve a healthy environment for future generations. Donate today to help.

Donate

Podcast

Connect the Dots

In the Connect the Dots podcast, the Center’s president, Rob Verchick, interviews legal experts, scholars and researchers, and community members on policy issues that impact you, your family, and your community. Each season untangles themes related climate adaptation, energy justice, workers’ rights and public health, and more.

This podcast is supported in part by the Arlie W. Schardt Fund for Climate Justice.

Rob Verchick speaking with a person in foreground
Subscribe to Connect the Dots on your favorite platform
Apple Music Spotify Apple Podcasts iHeart Radio Audioboom

Recent Episodes

May 2020
Essential, Not Expendable: Protecting Workers from COVID-19
Episode 3.7

In this episode of Connect the Dots, host Rob Verchick talks with CPR Member Scholars Michael C. Duff and Thomas O. McGarity about worker safety in the era of the coronavirus – the gaps in law, regulation, and enforcement that leave workers exposed to the virus, while permitting employers to escape accountability for providing an unsafe workplace. The conversation touches on the difficulty of creating foolproof physical transmission barriers, the Trump administration's scuttling of an Obama-initiated rule to prevent transmission of dangerous pathogens in the workplace, and efforts to deny "essential" employees or their surviving family members the right to recover damages for infection.

April 2020
One Doctor’s Life in the Time of Coronavirus
Episode 3.6

In this episode of Connect the Dots, host Rob Verchick talks with Dr. Andrew Duxbury, about his work as a geriatric physician and professor of medicine amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

March 2020
Saving Government Expertise and Protecting Public Health
Episode 3.5

In this episode of Connect the Dots, host Rob Verchick talks with CPR Board Member Sid Shapiro and Oxford University professor Liz Fisher about the role and importance of expertise in government agencies, rulemaking, and public policy development. This topic is of particular interest as there has been a campaign in the Trump administration and by others to ignore or eliminate that expertise in a range of different ways, which hinders the ability of agencies to deliver on their legislative obligations.

February 2020
Youths’ Climate Case Dismissed. Now What?
Episode 3.4

In this episode, host Rob Verchick talks with Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholars Melissa Powers and Karen Sokol about the 9th Circuit's dismissal of the Juliana v. United States youth climate justice case, what it means — and doesn't mean — for other climate cases working their way through the courts, and more. 

January 2020
To Dream the Impossible Burger — and Farm
Episode 3.3

In this episode of Connect the Dots, host Rob Verchick talks with CPR Board Members Gilonne d'Origny and Laurie Ristino about the threats to farming as usual. They also taste-test an Impossible Burger.