President-elect Joe Biden says he will infuse climate change into every corner of his agenda. That’s becoming evident looking at his emerging team. "You're already seeing signs from the nominees and the people they’re choosing that climate is going to be a part of every single agency," says Christy Goldfuss, Senior Vice President for Energy and Environment Policy at the Center for American Progress. But it will take more than staff buy-in to get the country to net-zero emissions. When he’s sworn...
Jan 01, 2021•53 min
Maintaining a consumption-driven economy while keeping emissions down seems more and more like a pipe dream -- is it time to re-think capitalism altogether? “The only thing it requires is a massive cultural and political movement changing the rules that constrain capitalism,” says Rebecca Henderson, author of Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, “but as soon as we can do that we’re done.” Short of a whole new capitalism, can the stock market be used as a tool for climate action? We may not...
Dec 26, 2020•54 min
Throughout a 45-year career as an environmental regulator, Mary Nichols has been a powerful champion for climate action and cutting emissions. Having been called everything from “Trump's nemesis” to “the most influential environmental regulator of all time,” Nichols has both taken on automakers and collaborated with them. Environmentalists have cheered her moves to limit carbon emissions, while occasionally criticizing her for not doing enough for disadvantaged communities. So where does Califor...
Dec 11, 2020•54 min
“Unprecedented” is one of the most overused words of 2020, but it reflects the superstorm of disruption brought on by an overlapping pandemic, racial justice awakening, and presidential election. For the first time ever, climate change galvanized a record number of voters to elect Joe Biden to the Presidency. How has the focus on climate shifted in a year shaped by multiple social and economic crises? Join us for a look back on a year of climate conversations like no other. Visit climateone.org/...
Dec 04, 2020•54 min
Is this the end of the road for the internal combustion engine? California isn’t the first major economy to ban gas-powered cars and trucks, and it won’t be the last. Fifteen countries, including some of the world’s top auto markets, have announced plans to phase out gas-powered engines as a step toward a 100% zero-emission vehicle future. It’s a bold move, but a critical one for climate. Transportation emits more greenhouse gas than any other sector of the US economy, and 15% of all global emis...
Nov 27, 2020•54 min
In this program, we revisit two Climate One programs from earlier in the year. First, events of the past year, including the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black citizens by police, have shone a glaring spotlight on the racism embedded in every aspect of American society. How can we amplify and advocate for leaders of color in the fight against climate change? Can art help us process our changing climate? The story of climate change is typically told in the language of facts a...
Nov 20, 2020•54 min
Harvest season is especially hard this year as the pandemic strains farmers and food systems, highlighting a deeply divided and often unjust America. Black farmers are no strangers to the intersection of these challenges, as structural racism in the food system makes it increasingly challenging for non-white farmers to own and profit from land. Is small-scale, regenerative agriculture a solution to climate disruption? How have years of redlining and discriminatory real estate policies shaped lan...
Nov 13, 2020•54 min
The 2020 campaign season has finally come to a close. And days after November 3rd has passed, the country is still reeling. About seventy percent of Americans - Democrats, Independents and Republicans - say the election caused a significant amount of anxiety and stress in their lives. That’s up from fifty percent four years ago. How should we process those difficult emotions surrounding the election? Climate psychologist Renée Lertzman recommends practicing self-awareness and self-care. “It’s ve...
Nov 06, 2020•52 min
What is the role of power in deciding the fate of a planet? 2020 has seen a reckoning with various forms of power embedded in racial, gender, and generational identities. As we think about a transfer of U.S. presidential power, what can we learn about how other types of power are shaping our climate and our future? “It is precisely for people when they vote to not just think of the vote as voting for health or voting for schools or libraries, but to start connecting the dots,” says Dorceta Taylo...
Oct 30, 2020•54 min
Can we break up the political logjam on climate? “The brokenness of our politics,” says Republican political strategist Stephen Schmidt, “is that we have 90% agreement on a dozen different solutions that we cannot get through the state or federal legislative processes -- because of the systemic brokenness of politics.” Not long ago, Democrats and Republicans basically agreed on climate change. Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger put California at the head of the charge to reduce greenhous...
Oct 23, 2020•52 min
Environmental groups like NRDC, 350.org, and Greenpeace helped move climate onto the presidential agenda last year, pushing Joe Biden and other Democrats’ stance on bold action. Now organizers and advocates are backing recovery plans that bolster clean energy jobs, help strengthen communities, and dismantle systems that exploit people and the planet. “We’re not calling for a referendum on business as usual,” says Tamara Toles O'Laughlin, North America Director of 350.org, “we’re calling for the ...
Oct 16, 2020•54 min
Pathways for reducing carbon emissions include electrifying transportation, replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar power. But in this time of national reckoning on racial and economic disparities there is growing support for a more holistic approach. This view holds that the climate crisis won’t be resolved until we first address the systemic imbalances that have fueled it - racism, capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy. In their new book, All We Can Save:Truth, Courage and Solutions fo...
Oct 09, 2020•54 min
Technology has helped the world survive, thrive and stay connected through the COVID-19 lockdown. As countries look toward re-opening in a post-pandemic world, does tech hold the same promise in the fight to solve climate change? From mapping weather patterns with pinpoint accuracy using artificial intelligence, to engineering algae that gobbles up carbon dioxide, climate tech is ripe with breakthroughs. “The technology is there,” says inventor and entrepreneur Saul Griffith, ”it’s now down to t...
Oct 02, 2020•54 min
Twenty years ago, Julia Roberts won an Oscar for her portrayal of maverick environmental activist Erin Brockovich in the film of the same name. These days, in addition to her work on water safety and toxins in communities, Brockovich has taken on the climate emergency. “Climate change is about too much water, not enough water, no water, drought, flooding,” Brockovich says. “I think it's becoming real because it's tangible, it's touchable. You're running from it, you’re breathing it. You're swimm...
Sep 25, 2020•54 min
From pipelines to clean power, the world’s biggest economies are brokering developments in oil, gas, and renewables that will shape climate and politics for years to come. But COVID, plummeting oil prices, and expectations for diversity and sustainability are changing the way successful industries must do business. “This isn't about supply and demand, this is about the economies being open or closed,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergn. Will the pursuit of energy and economic effici...
Sep 18, 2020•54 min
Wildfires are nothing new – they’ve been part of the west’s ecology for millennia. But burning fossil fuels and suppressing the burning of forests over the past century have led to larger, more frequent and ever-more catastrophic wildfires. And burning trees release carbon dioxide. California’s fires now are so big and fierce that they threaten to erase the state’s progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And even for those miles from the flames, the smoke from raging wildfires presents an...
Sep 11, 2020•54 min
The cost and health burdens of electricity production have long been higher for low-income communities of color than for wealthy white ones. But for many of those communities the fossil fuel industry is also a source of jobs, tax dollars, and cheap energy. “It makes it difficult for anyone to speak out against the hand that’s feeding them,” says Ivan Penn, Alternative Energy Reporter for the New York Times. “The NAACP would typically support the positions of the utility companies.” So is the ind...
Sep 04, 2020•54 min
Can art help us process our changing climate? The story of climate change is typically told in the language of facts and figures, graphs and charts. But through dance, music, sculpture and other media, artists can reach people on a deeper and more emotional level, designing cultural moments that can bring us together - and bring us to tears. Choreographer Alonzo King sees the union of art and science as the perfect balancing act. “There is nothing that exists that you can create that does not ha...
Aug 28, 2020•54 min
Coronavirus outbreaks in food markets, food plants, and farmworker communities have impacted food access and put a spotlight on food insecurity. Farmers are hurting as supply chains for fresh, perishable foods shrivel, while food banks have seen a surge in demand that has required distribution support from the National Guard. “Farmers saw a lot of increased demand direct to consumer, which requires extra labor, extra packaging -- just so much time essentially creating a whole new business model,...
Aug 21, 2020•54 min
Miami may be the poster child of rising waters in the U.S., but further inland, states are grappling with torrential flooding that is becoming the new norm. The Great Flood of 2019 caused destroyed acres of farmland and caused billions in damage throughout the Midwest. And scientists predict that there’s more climate-related precipitation to come. What does that mean for America’s aging infrastructure? “It’s absolutely going to fail for future climate events,” warns Martha Shulski of the Nebrask...
Aug 14, 2020•53 min
Long before the coronavirus began disrupting America’s trillion-dollar meat industry, lab-grown proteins were upending the way we consume chicken, pork, and beef. With an environmental footprint far smaller than traditional animal agriculture, are cell-cultured and plant-based meat products — now on the menus of major chains like Burger King — still the future of food? "While no one should reasonably be expected to eat a thousand dollar, million dollar burger, so too should we really be question...
Aug 07, 2020•54 min
Science has given us a realistic picture of what Earth will look like with unmitigated climate change: increased extreme weather events, crippled economies, and a world where those with the least are the hardest hit. By creating community and sharing feelings of fear and determination, “you can rely on each other and feed off each other…having an ecosystem of all these different people and entities and organizations that are involved in this great transformation effort is so critical,” says Proj...
Jul 31, 2020•54 min
For many of us, the story of the American wilderness begins when Europeans arrived on these shores and began conquering it. The wide open spaces of the American West loom large in our country’s mythology. But what often gets written out is the history and culture of those native societies who were here to begin with - and whose relationship to this land is very different. In some places like Jackson Hole, Wyoming, one-percenters contribute generously to preserve and protect the pristine wilderne...
Jul 24, 2020•54 min
The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to cut U.S. carbon emissions by 7.5% in 2020 — exactly the rate needed globally to meet the climate goals outlined in the Paris Agreement. Can other major economies like China and Europe make plans to decarbonize at the same rate without throwing their economies over a cliff? What happens when the world’s top clean energy exporters are also the top greenhouse gas emitters? With post-COVID economic recovery plans taking precedence, will the transition to a clean ...
Jul 17, 2020•54 min
Racism, police and the pandemic are dominating hearts and headlines, but will they translate to votes in national and regional elections? One study found wavering Trump voters rank immigration and climate change as top reasons for a possible vote change, but it’s unclear if that will materialize. Other studies contend climate doesn’t even rank on the minds of swing voters. Young, liberal Americans are leading the charge on climate, but Bernie Sanders learned they are more likely to protest than ...
Jul 10, 2020•54 min
The national uprising ignited by the murder of George Floyd has cast a spotlight on the country’s embedded, institutional racism, including the fraught relationship between environmentalism and communities of color. Air pollution, severe weather and the economic upheaval brought on by climate change impacts black and minority communities first and worst, yet their voices are often left out of policy responses and market solutions. How can we amplify and advocate for leaders of color in the fight...
Jul 02, 2020•52 min
Expanding oil extraction and clean energy, supporting capitalism while fighting climate change: can humans ever really have it all? In their new books, authors Hope Jahren and Rebecca Henderson explore how a healthy climate might coexist with a consumption-driven economy — and what we need to change to get the best of both worlds. Meanwhile, is Norway the perfect example of having it all — or just a walking contradiction? Like “a drug dealer who doesn’t use its own product”, Norway’s sovereign w...
Jun 26, 2020•54 min
As the global population approaches eight billion, humans continue to test the number of bodies that can fit onto a planet of finite resources. Empowering women through access to education and family planning may be at the core of establishing a healthy population balance, not just for the planet’s sake, but for ours. So why aren’t we talking about it more? How big a role can gender equity play in reducing our global carbon footprint — and who gets to decide? Visit climateone.org/watch-and-liste...
Jun 19, 2020•54 min
With less than four months before early voting begins in the presidential election, America is enraged and inflamed across the country. People of all races are expressing their anger and solidarity in the streets and on social media. Separately, COVID infection rates are rising in over 20 states including South Carolina, Georgia, Utah and Washington. Still, primary voting continues apace. So how will the turmoil across America impact the November election? How will voters cast their ballots? And...
Jun 12, 2020•55 min
America's latest oil boom began with a bang, literally, on Earth Day, 2010. That’s when an offshore oil rig owned by BP exploded, killing eleven workers and spilling nearly five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. John Hofmeister, co-founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, was in Washington D.C. at the time. “We simply have to get what are called negative emissions. The oil and gas industry, I think, is supremely qualified to have the scale, to have the engineers, to have this exp...
Jun 05, 2020•55 min
