The Current

The Current for July 21, 2022

Today on The Current: Preparations for the Pope’s visit, and the expectations among Indigenous communities; survivors fight for justice over devastating 2015 Brazil dam collapse; and the insect apocalypse and what it means for life on Earth
Duncan McCue is this week's guest host of The Current.

Full Episode Transcript

Today on The Current:

Days away from Pope Francis's arrival in Canada, guest host Duncan McCue talks to Papal visit spokesperson Neil McCarthy about how organizers are trying to get as many survivors as possible to events, and our correspondent Falen Johnson discusses the expectations — and concerns — among Indigenous communities.

Then, in 2015 a dam in the Brazilian city of Mariana collapsed, submerging dozens of homes in toxic waste, killing 19 people and displacing hundreds. Now a court in the U.K. has agreed to hear a $6bn-dollar lawsuit against the Anglo-Australian mining company BHP — which co-managed the dam. We hear from Jonathan Knowles, one of the plaintiffs in the case; Tom Goodhead, a lawyer with P.G.M.B.M., the British law firm behind the lawsuit; and Catherine Coumans, research coordinator and Asia-Pacific program coordinator for MiningWatch Canada. 

And author Oliver Milman says insect populations are facing a collapse, and that's bad news for Earth's entire ecosystem. We listen back to our February conversation with Milman, about his book The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World.