Episode 10: Nickel for Your Thoughts
Episode Length: 31:40
Focus
Pollution from smelting plants in Nikel, Russia. Government restrictions on journalists and other impacts of authoritarian power on climate change
Locations
Nikel, Russia
Keywords
mining, smelting, industrial pollution, media suppression, authoritarianism
Episode Outline
These outlines are intended to help you locate ideas and topics more easily, but these are narrative episodes with many interlocking themes and ideas, so you may want to share segments that cross multiple points in the outline.
MINUTES: 00:00 - 03:23
Road trip across Northwest Russia on the way to the mining and smelting town of Nikel:
Norilsk Nickel owns the mining and smelting plant that’s one of the Arctic’s largest polluters
03:24 - 05:57
Town of Nikel is right next to the plant and nearly every family has someone who works at the plant:
Most common use of nickel is for stainless steel but demand for electric vehicles is transforming the industry
05:58 - 07:24
Effects of sulfur dioxide on human health and the environment.
07:25 - 10:06
Why Norilsk Nickel has been allowed to continue polluting for generations:
History of the company, including its past as a gulag in Siberia
President of the company has close connections to Putin
BREAK
10:10 - 13:34
Many companies cashing in on Arctic resources with little oversight or media coverage:
Thomas Nilsen is a Norwegian journalist who has been reporting on the Russian Arctic for years
Nilsen has been declared a threat to national security in Russia and has not been allowed back into the country but he doesn’t know why
13:35 - 16:49
To get the right to report in Russia back, Nilsen is trying to take the Russian Federal Security Service (the FSB) to court:
Nilsen speculates that one reason he’s been banished is because he publishes in Russian, unlike other journalists reporting in the area
The Russian government is afraid of free speech
16:50 - 19:59
Putin started cracking down on independent journalists in 2000:
Reporters who challenge government policies tend to die in mysterious circumstances
Half of the Arctic is in Russia so the lack of media coverage has major consequences for local communities
20:00 - 25:23
“Elena” talks about what it’s like living under authoritarianism in Russia:
Threat of being watched by the government changes how people think and act
Government gives the impression of choice and freedom that doesn’t really exist
25:24 - 31:40
Effects of authoritarian power creates an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear:
“Elena’s” great grandfather was targeted by Stalin for being a leader in his community
Independent thinking is seen as a threat so a lot of what is happening in the country goes unseen and unquestioned