Donald Trump was surrounded by billionaires during his inauguration. It became glaringly obvious who bought the election. But the influence of the uber wealthy goes far beyond that one election. They are picking our pockets and causing societal instability in many ways. Chuck Collins looks at their impact in his book Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power are Ruining Our Lives and Planet.

When Donald Trump took a wrecking ball to the East Wing of the White house it was both real and symbolic. Much of what we took for granted, the rule of law, the constitution and due process have also been demolished. All of this happening as the planet is reaching irreversible tipping points. A recent report found that 84% of world’s coral has been bleached. Heat waves, wildfires, floods and droughts driven by burning fossil fuels are transforming our world and have devastating consequences for life on the planet. Faced with the intellectual, moral, and spiritual abyss created by these intersecting crises, despair can seem like a reasonable response. But this isn’t the first time it appeared as if the world might come to a crashing halt. After two catastrophic world wars, the rise of fascism and the threat of nuclear annihilation mid 20th-century thinkers like Hannah Arendt, Albert Camus and Simone Weil found meaning and hope. Wen Stephenson explores their legacy and examines what it will take to find the resolve to keep going in his book Learning to Live in the Dark: Essays in a Time of Catastrophe.

In the spirit of upcoming Halloween, the new interview is about a horror graphic novel trilogy. Tim Mulligan adds supernatural forces to the most radioactive site in the United States, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland Washington. In this interview we talk about the real horrors of radioactive releases and the fictional horrors of witches, ghosts and radioactive bats.