If you’re a climate-conscious person, you likely already know some of the main ways you can reduce your contribution to greenhouse gasses: buy less, eat less meat, ride your bike. But there are other, less obvious methods we don’t always think of: voting, having climate conversations, engaging with your local government, changing where your money is invested. And while our role as individuals does matter, we’re more powerful when we work together in collective action. Guests: Jon Foley, Executiv...
Mar 01, 2024•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast When most people hear the phrase renewable energy, they imagine fields full of solar panels or giant spinning wind turbines. But another source may be heating up: geothermal. Twenty years ago it was thought that geothermal could provide at most 10% of any given area’s electricity, and only in very limited regions. There were also environmental concerns about depleting groundwater. But new technological advances may have unlocked the potential for scalable geothermal energy just about anywhere. A...
Feb 23, 2024•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast As fossil fuels are phased out, shuttered coal plants, contaminated landfills, and abandoned mine lands across the U.S. are finding new life as renewable energy projects. More than 23 states have 100% clean energy goals, and in order to reach those goals, some states are starting to convert what was once considered “dirty” into “clean” energy generation. But what happens to the infrastructure, workers, and community after a coal plant shuts down? And as billions are dispersed through policies li...
Feb 16, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast A settlement for the largest civil penalty resulting from the Clean Air Act has just been reached. The EPA, DOJ and the State of California have agreed to a $1.7 billion fine for engine maker Cummins Inc. The fine is the result of Cummins being caught using “defeat devices” to fool emissions testers into thinking the engines pollute less than they really do. Does that sound familiar? It’s exactly what Volkswagen was caught doing nearly 10 years ago. VW and Cummins aren’t the only ones; it’s an i...
Feb 09, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jane Fonda has spent the last several decades fighting for Indigenous peoples' rights, economic justice, LGBTQ rights, peace, gender equality and more. Now, she is devoting herself to the climate emergency, beginning with Fire Drill Fridays, the national movement to protest government inaction on climate change she started in October 2019. Through the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, she is focused on defeating political allies of the fossil fuel industry. At 85, Fonda continues to fight for the most vul...
Feb 02, 2024•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast We often talk about a “just transition” from dirty to clean energy as if the term means the same thing to everyone. Indigenous people have seen their resources extracted and exploited to further the wealth of others for centuries. Now renewable energy is looking to expand to Indigenous land. How can renewable energy help Tribes leapfrog the twentieth century technologies that put them at the end of the line for corporate-controlled electricity? How can we, as Chéri Smith, Founder of the Alliance...
Jan 26, 2024•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast What we wear defines us in so many ways. But in recent decades we’ve moved away from long-lasting, quality pieces in favor of disposable fast fashion, with major consequences for our climate and environment. From mechanized farming and pesticides to grow fiber crops, to energy for manufacturing and transportation, fossil fuels are embedded in the clothing industry at every step of the process. Companies large and small are working against this trend, with some setting lofty goals for reducing ca...
Jan 19, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast The climate crisis can feel distant — like it’s someone else’s problem — until your town is flooded, your home is damaged by storms, or you're struggling to pay electricity bills as the summers get hotter. Figuring out the specifics of how a region is vulnerable to climate impacts can be the difference between adaptation or disaster, especially for communities that don’t have a lot of climate or environmental expertise among their members. Community science — defined as communities and scientist...
Jan 12, 2024•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast From the climate movement’s earliest days, young people have been at the forefront of activism. But the first major international climate conferences took place 30 years ago. The first cohort of youth activists are now adults, some with children of their own. The emotional cost of seeing so little payoff for years spent fighting can be agonizing at any age, but perhaps more so for young people who put so much of themselves into the effort. Many youth activists burned out along the way, frustrate...
Jan 05, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Can you imagine if everything you needed in your everyday life was just a walk or bike ride away? That’s the goal of the 15-minute city, a new name for an old idea. Reducing the need for cars cuts emissions and gets autos off of the roads, which is a boon for safety, air quality and the climate. But, as is often the case, good ideas become a lot more difficult when you have to implement them in real places, with real people, who don’t always share the enthusiasm for the idea. What will it take t...
Dec 29, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ben Santer has spent decades researching and identifying the human fingerprints on the climate system changes we’re now all seeing. He was lead author on the historic 1995 conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which proclaimed that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” That was the first time the IPCC authoritatively stated humans are causing climate change. At the time, Stephen Schneider told Ben Santer that the sentence he wr...
Dec 22, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s been a year of weather extremes — again. But there’s also been cause for renewed hope about our climate future. On the heels of this year’s international climate conference held in the oil-rich Middle East, Climate One hosts Greg Dalton and Ariana Brocious review major climate stories of the year, both lows and highs. This special episode features excerpts from some of Climate One’s most surprising, moving and compelling interviews of 2023, including conversations with luminaries Rev. Lenno...
Dec 15, 2023•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, we’re reporting from Dubai, where the 28th UN climate change conference (COP28) is now underway. Ever since the Paris Agreement was signed at COP21, the central issue has remained the same: How do the nations of the world keep global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels? This year marks the first “global stocktake,” where the data on how well we’re collectively doing on meeting the Paris targets are front and center. Across the board, countries are failing. How m...
Dec 08, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast The 28th annual Conference of the Parties, COP28, opens this week in Dubai. For the 28th time, the nations of the world have gathered to see what progress they can make on addressing the increasingly global climate crisis. It’s fair to wonder why, after three decades, we still haven’t taken the collective action necessary. And it’s equally fair to wonder why diplomats continue to bother with what Greta Thunberg famously called “blah, blah, blah.” This year’s COP marks the first “Global Stocktake...
Dec 01, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Most Americans support climate action, but you wouldn’t know it from Congress or the courts – or from most of the media. People on both the left and the right experience the same devastating floods, the same life-threatening heatwaves and the same catastrophic wildfires. Yet individuals tend to socialize within insulated political tribes, operate in completely different information bubbles and see the problems and solutions through different lenses. How can we learn to bridge ideological divides...
Nov 24, 2023•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast From The Coolest Show: The City of Atlanta has leased 381-acres of Weelaunee Forest, stolen Muscogee land, to the Atlanta Police Foundation for a police military facility funded by corporations. This would be the largest police training facility in the US in a primarily Black community who overwhelmingly oppose the project. Despite over fifteen hours of public comments against the project, the City Council has approved $67 million in public funding for Cop City. The plans include military-grade ...
Nov 21, 2023•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast One of the most common questions people ask about climate is: what can I do? Since time is one of our most valuable resources – and we spend so much of our time at work – changing jobs may be the most effective individual climate action a person can take. Those changes could be big or small: Leaving the oil and gas industry for geothermal, or helping to bring down the emissions where you already work. The truth is, almost any job can be a climate job. But how do people actually make the transiti...
Nov 17, 2023•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Climate affects everyone, but not equally. Those affected first and worst are often the same communities that suffer from housing and income inequality, and climate and societal injustice. Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. has made striving for social, economic, and climate justice his lifelong pursuit. Rising to prominence in the Hip Hop community, Yearwood brought like-minded artists and creatives together to advocate for justice with the Hip Hop Caucus by harnessing the power of film, podcasts and co...
Nov 10, 2023•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit has been examining hope and the unpredictability of change for over 20 years. In 2023 she co-edited an anthology called, “It’s Not Too Late,” which serves as a guidebook for changing the climate narrative from despair to possibility. How can we find hope on a warming planet? Guests: Rebecca Solnit, Writer, Historian, Activist For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 03, 2023•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Laughter can be good medicine, but when is it okay to laugh at something as deadly serious as the climate crisis? Jokes help us remember information that otherwise might not be retained. A snappy punchline can be a powerful way to get a message through to an audience. Comedy can also be a way for performers and audiences alike to cope with a shared societal problem, like climate or social justice. Humor has a way of slipping through our perceived biases and giving us a new way of looking at chal...
Oct 27, 2023•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Disasters caused by burning fossil fuels are becoming more frequent, and in the aftermath of hurricanes, floods and wildfires, federal and state responses are often slow or insufficient. There is a growing body of research showing that neighborhood ties can be the difference between life and death: Socially connected neighbors are less likely to die from excessive heat or other extreme weather events. Community-based action, like mutual aid, can bring resources to people overlooked by overburden...
Oct 20, 2023•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast For thousands of years, the American buffalo evolved alongside Indigenous people who relied on them for food and shelter, and, in exchange for killing them, revered the animal. For millennia, this totemic animal lived in symbiotic relationship with grasslands throughout North America, then – in less than 100 years – new settlers and hunters brought their numbers from 30 million to the mere hundreds, while in the same era glorifying them as our iconic national animal. It’s a classic and cautionar...
Oct 13, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Congressman Ro Khanna has made a name for himself as a pragmatic progressive and critic of Big Oil. He grilled oil company CEOs under oath and helped negotiate with Senator Joe Manchin to keep climate policy in the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest piece of climate legislation ever passed in the United States. Despite being one of the more progressive voters in Congress, Khanna has a reputation for coalition building; he got more bills passed than any other Democrat during the previous admini...
Oct 06, 2023•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jane Fonda has spent the last several decades fighting for Indigenous peoples' rights, economic justice, LGBTQ rights, peace, gender equality and more. Now, she is devoting herself to the climate emergency, beginning with Fire Drill Fridays, the national movement to protest government inaction on climate change she started in October 2019. Now, through the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, she is focused on defeating political allies of the fossil fuel industry. At 85, Fonda continues to fight for the mos...
Sep 29, 2023•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast The climate crisis can be difficult to cover in a way that most people can relate to. The mechanism of harm goes from a person's gas car or stove to the Earth's atmosphere and back again in the form of floods and fires. That's why true stories of individuals and families experiencing the fallout of the climate crisis can be so impactful. They help us relate to each other on a more direct level, the way humans naturally do: person to person. Covering Climate Now Journalism Award winners Naomi Kle...
Sep 22, 2023•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re living through a climate emergency; addressing this crisis begins by talking about it. Join us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 19, 2023•29 sec•Transcript available on Metacast Fourteen years after receiving its permit, the nation’s first new nuclear reactors in decades just fired up in Georgia. Massive, traditional nuclear reactors like this have faced so many cost overruns and construction delays that the investment market for them all but vanished. Despite a handful of recent technical breakthroughs in fusion power, its promise of virtually limitless power remains just a promise. But could a new wave of small, modular fission reactors bring new carbon-free power ont...
Sep 15, 2023•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Since the industrial revolution, the global north has seen massive economic growth. Yet that growth has been linked to increasing greenhouse gas emissions. We also live on a planet with finite resources, so it's hard to believe that we can continue to consume resources and release emissions and not sail right past our collective climate goals. That’s why some people are starting to rethink perpetual economic growth as the best measure of a healthy economy. But what would an economy focused on me...
Sep 08, 2023•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Stories are the way we remember, the way we share knowledge, the way we play out possible outcomes. Climate fiction imagines dark or bright futures depending on how we address the climate crisis. And there’s a healthy debate about what kind of stories move more people to act: dark tales of a scary climate future or positive versions of a greener, more just world. “I think that if you want to create change in a democratic society, people have to believe that there is actually a threat,” says auth...
Sep 01, 2023•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast As the build out of infrastructure for electric passenger vehicles gets underway, another segment of transportation is just starting down the road to electrification: heavy duty trucks. It’s one of the hard-to-decarbonize parts of our economy. Right now, nearly all long-haul trucks run on fossil fuels. And if we continue with business as usual, freight will become the highest-emitting part of the transportation sector by 2050. That’s why seven states, led by California, have mandated that an inc...
Aug 25, 2023•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
