Podcast:
Listen for free to The Makers and Shakers on your favourite podcast app or by clicking play on the episodes below.
EPISODES:
Episode One – Dear Ancestors – 41 minutes
It’s 2075 in Kingston Ontario. An old man enters his childhood home, now abandoned, after a long journey. We find out he is dying of cancer. He begins telling his life story to the ghosts of 2022. His name is Oliver Adams. In 2018, he and other students in grade 12, inspired by Greta Thunberg, start striking for the climate. Four students — Oliver, Leah, Seth and Grace — form a group called the Makers and Shakers Society.
EPISODE 2 – School – 40 minutes
Oliver argues with adults who scoff at his climate concerns. He experiences romantic heartbreak at the end of high school in 2019. His first big love, Leah Zhang, rejects monogamy and is about to leave for university in Vancouver. While much of the world suffers a record-breaking summer heat wave, Oliver discusses politics and the future with Grace, a fellow Maker and Shaker, who seems wise beyond her years.
EPISODE 3 – Beautiful Failure – 37 minutes
While all his friends leave town to go to university, Oliver remains in Kingston and starts a band called “Beautiful Failure.” He doesn’t enjoy attending Queen’s. In January he quits school and starts working at a health food store where he meets Lennon, a trans youth. During the three-year COVID-19 pandemic, Oliver suffers from depression. That’s when he reconnects with former classmates Grace and Seth who live in Toronto.
EPISODE 4 – Rapid Response – 36 minutes
In 2023 Oliver takes the bus to Toronto to visit his friends. He finds out Grace and Seth are student activists with many tales of blockades and hunger strikes. Grace convinces Oliver to start a climate activist group in Kingston called Rapid Response. Over the years that follow, a remarkable, climate-sincere government wins power in Ottawa under Prime Minister Omnira Anderson. Anderson’s personal assistant is Maker and Shaker Leah Zhang, Oliver’s high school love. Politics in Canada start looking better until severe political backlash and a series of scandals topples the Anderson regime. The result is an abrupt switch to a police state under the United People’s Alliance. Seth is arrested and Grace suddenly has to go into hiding. She asks Oliver to join her.
EPISODE 5 – Pinot Noir – 44 minutes
Grace and Oliver, using false identities, become farmworkers at the McCann Estates Winery in Prince Edward County. During the eight years they live in hiding, they are involved in a migrant workers strike, become lovers, and have a child together. Meanwhile, as predicted, climate crisis decimates much of the world. Millions die in countries near the equator. The US collapses into warring factions. The underground resistance group Black Rose Network, which Oliver and Grace are part of, discovers a government informer in its midst. Soon after, Grace is arrested.
EPISODE 6 – Galileo
Leah, who once assisted Omnira Anderson, now works for United People’s Alliance, the authoritarian government which has taken power in Canada. The nation’s capital has moved from Ottawa to Waterloo Ontario, now a walled city. In 2038, shortly after Grace’s arrest, Oliver has to secretly enter the walled city so that he can negotiate with Leah on behalf of the Black Rose Network. He offers the end of blockades and bombings in return for the release of prisoners, including Grace and Seth. As they talk, Leah tells him the real story behind the coup that toppled the Anderson government.
Radioland Media Collective 