Climate One

Climate One from The Commonwealth Club•www.climateone.org

We’re living through a climate emergency; addressing this crisis begins by talking about it. Co-Hosts Greg Dalton and Ariana Brocious bring you empowering conversations that connect all aspects of the challenge — the scary and the exciting, the individual and the systemic. Join us. Subscribe to Climate One on Patreon for access to ad-free episodes.

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Episodes

Gina McCarthy on Cutting Everything but Emissions

Since its creation under President Richard Nixon in 1970, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has worked to reduce pollution and toxic exposures to ensure that Americans have clean air, clean water and clean soil. The EPA has also sought to reduce emissions to address climate change. Now that the Trump administration is in power, the EPA is being threatened with a 65% reduction in their budget. In addition to EPA cuts, the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is makin...

Apr 18, 2025•1 hr 2 min

Net Gains: Saving Seafood Before It’s Too Late

More than 3 billion people rely on seafood as a primary source of animal protein. But waters are warming, and fish are moving. Are those fish, and the communities that have relied on them for centuries, in trouble? We go around the world, from the rocky shores of New England to the picturesque island of Niue, to investigate how three popular fish are doing. Along the way, we meet people who are protecting and regrowing these fish populations in different ways and learn about their challenges and...

Apr 11, 2025•58 min

AI’s Power Demands: Do We Really Have the Energy for This?

In a previous Climate One episode, we discussed the good, the bad, and the ugly impacts of artificial intelligence. But AI isn’t going away. Humans rarely give up a nifty new tool unless something better comes along. AI’s share of energy consumption is enormous, and the Department of Energy estimates that data center energy demands will double or even triple in just the next three years. Demand on fresh water is at least as big and isn’t talked about nearly enough. So, what can we do to reduce A...

Apr 04, 2025•1 hr 3 min

Trump Breaks Wind?

It’s no secret that President Trump is not a fan of wind energy. As a matter of fact, he signed an executive order on his first day back in office that paused leasing for any new or renewed offshore wind energy projects and required the re-evaluation of all wind projects. This has thrown uncertainty into the entire industry, which already had supply chain and local opposition issues even before the new administration took office. Meanwhile, wind projects — especially offshore — have seen a decad...

Mar 28, 2025•1 hr 2 min

Justice and Faith: Catherine Coleman Flowers and Justin J. Pearson

Catherine Coleman Flowers has dedicated her life to fighting for the most vulnerable communities — people who have been deprived of the basic civil right to a clean, safe and sustainable environment. When she was first on Climate One in 2021, Flowers talked about growing up in Lowndes County, Alabama, and working to stem the raw sewage contaminating homes and drinking water in her county and beyond. In recognition of this work she was granted a MacArthur “Genius Award.” Now, she picks up the sto...

Mar 21, 2025•59 min

Making Cents Out of Watts: What’s Driving Up Your Energy Bills?

A third of Americans say that they've skipped food, medicine, or something else to be able to afford their energy bills. Much of the increase in the cost of electricity is driven by rising demand from artificial intelligence and data centers, industrial onshoring and hotter temperatures. How does your electricity bill get calculated, and who’s in charge of setting those rates? Does public power serve consumers better than investor-owned utilities? And will rising electricity prices dampen the tr...

Mar 14, 2025•1 hr 3 min

Is ESG BS?

Who’s responsible for climate change? Fossil fuel companies would like us to believe it’s all of us as individuals (after all, BP invented the idea of the personal carbon footprint). But many large corporations bear at least as much of the blame. And for a decade or so, there was a push for every company to disclose its own emissions — a kind of corporate carbon footprint — and “sustainability” became the word of the day. But corporate shareholders demand profits, and managers are held accountab...

Mar 07, 2025•1 hr 9 min