Prior to the New Deal, millions of rural Americans were quite literally living in the dark. Though electricity had been available for decades, it was out of reach for most living in America's countryside post-World War I. That all changed within a decade. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's approach to the power sector during the Great Depression transformed electrification and public utilities on rural life and dramatically modernized the American home throught the nation. In his new book, Democr...
Jan 20, 2025•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're back for one last episode of 2024 with our most frequent guest on The Climate Pod! Evlondo Cooper is back on the show to review how climate change was covered in mainstream media over the course of the year. In this conversation, Evlondo Cooper discusses the evolving landscape of climate media, why it remains critical to connect extreme weather events to climate change, and how that still continues to be absent from major news coverage. He highlights the power of mainstream media in shapin...
Dec 31, 2024•55 min•Ep 310•Transcript available on Metacast What would the world look like at 3-degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels? In his latest work, Collision Course: 3-degrees of warming & humanity’s future, David Spratt explores the catastrophic implications of the planet we're heading towards as warming continues to accelerate. He argues we need to face up to realities of the crisis and have an honest discourse on risks and impacts already occuring. On the show this week, he joins us to discuss the significance of tipping points...
Dec 26, 2024•50 min•Ep 309•Transcript available on Metacast We're undergoing a necessary renewable energy transition. And this transition will require an enormous amount of critical metals in order to power an economy without fossil fuels. Today, the processes we use to extract these materials - from copper, nickel, lithium, and more - are causing harm to both humans and our physical environment. So what do we do about it? In his new book, Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future , Vince Beiser argues that there are huge opportu...
Dec 19, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep 308•Transcript available on Metacast What do human beings owe planet Earth? How are we responsible to future generations? Those are some pretty weighty questions. But in reality, if you're confronting the climate crisis, it should bring about some pretty weighty philosophical issues, shouldn't it? So to help, we called in popular philospher Todd May to guide us through tackling some of those biggest of big picture questions we could ponder. A renowned philosopher and advisor to NBC’s The Good Place with 18(!) books published on phi...
Dec 11, 2024•53 min•Ep 307•Transcript available on Metacast If you're a regular listener of this show or often engage with the facts of the climate crisis, it's likely you experience a fair deal of climate anxiety. I know I do. So I wanted to dive into those feelings and how to think about processing it all. For over a decade, Kate Schapira has been having these conversations as a part of her Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth. Now, she has a new book out, Lessons from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth - How to Live with Care and Purpose in an Endangere...
Dec 04, 2024•56 min•Ep 306•Transcript available on Metacast COP29 is over. A new agreement has been struck. So what the hell happened? Climate reporter Dharna Noor is here to explain. She was on the ground during the conference to cover it all and she's on the show this week to deep dive into the results and what it means for global climate action. Dharna discusses the complexities and stakes surrounding COP29, how the central theme of climate finance shaped the conference, and the key takeaways of the final agreement. We also discuss the tension between...
Nov 28, 2024•42 min•Ep 305•Transcript available on Metacast “Among the growing effects of the climate crisis, the evolution of hurricanes is one of the more immediate and destructive.” Our oceans are warming. Superstorms are intensifying. In Porter Fox's new book, the accelerating danger resulting from these two realities of the climate crisis is on full display. And Fox is no stranger to the ocean - as a longtime sailor and decades-long climate writer, he literally confronts deadly storms in his reporting. Now, with latest book, Category Five, Superstor...
Nov 21, 2024•42 min•Ep 304•Transcript available on Metacast As our environment changes, so do our brains. Climate changes impact our physical environments is many noticeable ways, but it's also changing us on the inside as well. Clayton Page Aldern is a neuroscientist turned environmental journalist who has unpacked this phenomenon in his new book, The Weight of Nature: How A Changing Climate Changes Our Brains . He joins the show this week to discuss how our brains adapt to climate change and limits we face, how shifting baseline syndrome impacts climat...
Oct 09, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast For 57 years, Ed Begley Jr. has been in literally hundreds of your favorite movies and television shows. And during those years, he's also established himself as one of the most prominent voices in Hollywood on environmental sustainability and climate action. Now, he’s with a new memoir, To the Temple of Tranquility…And Step On It!, which recounts his life in both entertainment and environmental and climate advocate. Ed joins us on the show this week to discuss his life and career. We talk about...
Sep 19, 2024•56 min•Ep 302•Transcript available on Metacast The climate movement faces mounting pressure in 2024. Record-setting temperatures and extreme weather disasters continue to devastate over a turbulent summer. Prominent plans to roll back environmental regulations and stiffle climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives have movement leaders pushing back on attacks. Is the climate movement able to handle the pressure at this critical moment? Few people are as equipped to answer that question as Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. Over his decades of clima...
Jul 24, 2024•47 min•Ep 301•Transcript available on Metacast In 2008, the world economic system was rocked by a financial crisis that stemmed from risky mortgages being securitized and sold as safe investments to unknowing investors. Misaligned incentives, unpriced risk, deceptive selling practices, and a lack of regulatory scrutiny throughout the financial industry led to the Great Recession, the consequences of which we're still feeling in a variety of ways today. While somewhat different from what preceded the 2008 financial crisis, there are clear par...
Jul 17, 2024•32 min•Ep 300•Transcript available on Metacast Bad actors continue to push fake talking points to obscure the truth on climate change and slow down action. So how we combat these common myths and inspire people to do more? That's the focus of today's show and a new book by our guest, Dr. Genevieve Guenther. In her new book, The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil-Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It , Guenther argues that climate leaders should use sharper language that argues for transformative action and a windfall of benefits in the face ...
Jul 10, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep 299•Transcript available on Metacast For 70 years, building out and expanding American highways have been core parts to the entire US transportation project. But the initial effort to connect cities and states has created gigantic problems in the subsequent decades. Instead of fixing many of these critical issues, too often we see cities and states double down on the problem and make our transportation system worse. And carbon emissions from the transportation sector are a huge part of the climate fight. So what do we do about high...
Jun 26, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep 298•Transcript available on Metacast President Biden campaigned on the promises of producing 100% of America's electricity with clean energy resources by 2035 and getting America's economy to Net Zero emissions by 2050. Since President Biden took office, the US Congress has passed the Bi-partisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPs and Science Act - all aimed at helping America transition to a clean energy economy. In addition to creating incentives for private companies to invest in clean energy manufact...
Jun 19, 2024•32 min•Ep 297•Transcript available on Metacast Mary Annaïse Heglar is back on the show to discuss her new book "Troubled Waters", a fictional account of a young Black woman in Mississippi that uses direct action against the fossil fuel industry as a healing mechanism for her own grief, while also learning about the grief and trauma that her own grandmother carries with her from her days at the center of the Civil Rights movement. Mary Annaïse Heglar is one of the great essayists and writers about the climate crisis, climate grief, and climat...
Jun 12, 2024•49 min•Ep 296•Transcript available on Metacast The climate movement is used to fight denial. Few who do this work escape the need to push back against critics claiming that human-created carbon dioxide emissions don't cause dangerous warming. But as the crisis becomes more clear and everpresent, it's time to expand our definition of climate denial, argues author Tad DeLay. In his new book, Future of Denial: The Ideologies of Climate Change , DeLay confronts the idea that we are rarely facing up to the real facts of the crisis and allowing fo...
Jun 05, 2024•57 min•Ep 295•Transcript available on Metacast Hundreds of billions of dollars have already been invested in clean energy projects in America since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022. With that level of spending, clean energy jobs are on the rise, meaning there's never been a better time to start a career focused on combating the climate crisis. The variety of roles in clean energy jobs means there are plenty of ways you can become a "Climate Person" in your professional life, even if you've been one in your personal life for a w...
May 29, 2024•36 min•Ep 294•Transcript available on Metacast This week, two Pultizer Prize-winning reporters join the show to discuss their new investigative series, “The Drowning South," and how the threat of sea level rise is causing a number of complex problems in America's southern coastal cities. The Washington Post's Chris Mooney, a reporter covering climate change, energy and the environment, and Brady Dennis, a reporter focusing on environmental policy, public health issues and climate impacts, explain why the American south is facing an unusual a...
May 22, 2024•53 min•Ep 293•Transcript available on Metacast In 2018, economist William Nordhaus won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy model, which was the first neoclassical growth model to incorporate the impacts of a warming planet on the global economy. While celebrated for its economic innovations, the DICE model and its outputs have been criticized by climate scientists for not adequately considering the devastating impacts that a rapidly warming planet will have on the environment, human wellbe...
May 15, 2024•51 min•Ep 292•Transcript available on Metacast Over the past five years, there have been several studies showing how the climate crisis is impacting major life decisions. Whether it’s where to live, how to invest, or what to study, young people today are being forced to confront a climate-worsened future and decide what’s best for their personal situation given the very public failures of leaders to limit global warming. One particular decision that has received a lot of public attention is whether or not to have a child in the middle of a c...
May 08, 2024•49 min•Ep 291•Transcript available on Metacast Popular films have massive influence over our culture. It's where we go to see the biggest stories on the biggest screen. It's where we go to see Nicole Kidman do that weird commerical before the film starts. Movies are really, really important. So, why isn't the climate crisis, one of the defining issues of our time, on the silver screen more often. That's a question Anna Jane Joyner and Matthew Schneider-Mayerson are investigating. Together, they put together a new report, Climate Reality On-S...
May 01, 2024•57 min•Ep 290•Transcript available on Metacast The American Climate Corps, an initiative that will employ 20,000 Americans in its first year to combat the climate crisis, is launching this week as the Biden Administration delivers on another campaign promise. Learning from previous national service programs such as FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps and AmeriCorps, the American Climate Corps will give young people the opportunity to learn new skills, build a pathway to a career in the clean energy economy, and earn a competitive wage. On this...
Apr 22, 2024•35 min•Ep 289•Transcript available on Metacast For years, we've watched as Bill Weir has brought climate storytelling to one of the biggest news networks on television. On CNN, Bill has traveled the world to cover everything from extreme weather disasters to cutting-edge climate solutions. And throughout an incredibly eventful career, he's learned life lessons he hopes his children and others will consider to preserve what we love most on this warming planet. Bill joins the show this week to explain why chose this career path, what he enjoye...
Apr 17, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep 288•Transcript available on Metacast Shannon Osaka has been one of our favorite climate journalists for years. So we were incredibly excited to have her on this week for a wide-ranging conversation on a variety of climate issues - like microplastics, extreme weather costs in the US, and covering climate change as we exceed 1.5 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels. Shannon also explains how she got into climate journalism after studying the science of climate change, how she approaches her work, and the challenges of cover...
Apr 10, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep 287•Transcript available on Metacast For decades, the biggest pushback against renewable energy was that it was more expensive to generate than electricity that came from the burning of fossil fuels. But all that changed in 2016 when both solar and wind-generated electricity became cheaper than electricity generated by coal and natural gas, at least when using the industry-standard metric, Levelized Cost of Energy. Despite the fact that renewable energy has overcome its biggest obstacle and can now be generated cheaper than fossil ...
Apr 03, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Ep 286•Transcript available on Metacast The climate crisis presents us with a number of moral challenges. We all produce emissions, but there are massive differences and inequities in how much pollution each individual is responsible for and who is harmed the most by the consequences. As the very real impacts of the crisis only become more obvious and deadly, we continue to ask ourselves: what is our responsibility? In this week's show, we dig into some of the tough ethical considerations for living in a climate crisis. To do so, we t...
Mar 27, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep 285•Transcript available on Metacast In 2021, Greta Thunberg spoke to the youth climate movement at an event leading up to COP26. Her famous "Blah, Blah, Blah" speech contrasted all of the things world leaders had said about the climate crisis and what those same leaders had actually done to reduce emissions and create policies to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. Three years later, very little has changed. Of the 128 countries that set Net Zero goals, only five percent have taken the required first steps toward achieving t...
Mar 20, 2024•45 min•Ep 284•Transcript available on Metacast Over the last century, economic growth, as measured by increases in countries' Gross Domestic Product, has been the key indicator of success. And while GDP has skyrocketed in many countries, so has fossil fuel use, deforestation, and the destruction of natural ecosystems. On top of that, inequality has actually gotten worse in many countries and incomes, adjusted for inflation, have stagnated for many parts of these "growing" economies. It seems this relentless focus on growth has not created th...
Mar 13, 2024•59 min•Ep 283•Transcript available on Metacast It's incredible how dramatic climate science can be. That was my first thought after I watched the new documentary, Canary , which chronicles the life and career of Dr. Lonnie Thompson. This week, the subject behind the film, Dr. Thompson, and the co-directors of the documentary, Danny O'Malley and Dr. Alex Rivest, explain how the film came together and the thrilling story behind its development. We discuss how to tell compelling climate stories, what motivates their work, and what decades of gl...
Mar 06, 2024•52 min•Ep 282•Transcript available on Metacast 
