Climate One
796 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 days ago - ★★★★★ - 502 ratingsWe’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.
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Episodes
30x30: This Land Is Whose Land?
August 13, 2021 08:00 - 54 minutesIn October 2020, California Gov. Newsom announced a plan to protect 30% of his state by 2030. In 2021, the Biden Administration announced its own 30x30 plan, later dubbed America the Beautiful. With 12% of the U.S. already under some form of protection, where will the other 18% come from? In states like Nebraska, nearly all the land is in private hands — and the owners are worried. With increased focus on the climate crisis, it’s easy to think we have enough to worry about without considering...
Jay Inslee, BP and Washington’s Climate Story
August 06, 2021 08:00 - 1 hourIn Washington State, voters defeated initiatives to put a price on carbon ― twice. Governor Jay Inslee himself then lost his personal bid for the White House. Yet his bold ideas have proven staying power. The state legislature recently passed a carbon cap and invest bill that will reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions 95 percent by 2050. “We’ve got to wake up every morning figuring out ‘how can I disrupt the status quo.’ Because the status quo is deadly, it’s fatal, it will destroy ec...
Vandana Shiva and the Hubris of Manipulating Nature
July 30, 2021 08:00 - 53 minutesFrom clearing land for pasture to building dams, humans have long changed the face of the Earth. But Indian eco-feminist Vandana Shiva is highly critical of how we’ve changed our relationship with the land through industrial monocrop agriculture. She firmly opposes genetically modified crops, and has called seed patents “bio-piracy.” But it’s not just the technology she’s critical of. “I’m critical of the world view of arrogance. The worldview that came with colonialism, the mechanistic mind...
How a Manufactured Car Culture Blocks Transit
July 23, 2021 08:00 - 1 hourThe United States is famous for its car culture. But a hundred years ago, pedestrians didn’t want cars to take over the streets — and it took decades of pressure and lobbying by car companies to make them feel otherwise. Today, traffic jams, maintenance and pollution make cars more like the cigarette no one wants to quit. Urban areas have grown up and spread out along ever widening highways with parking spaces required for each new building, further entrenching the car into our lives and chok...
REWIND: A Feminist Climate Renaissance
July 16, 2021 08:00 - 54 minutesPathways for reducing carbon emissions include electrifying transportation and 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 recent book, All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and S...
Mark Carney, Fatih Birol and the Narrow Path to Net Zero
July 09, 2021 08:00 - 55 minutesWhen we think of action on climate change, we usually think of what individuals can do, what governments can do, and maybe what businesses can do. But what about the broader economic levers that affect behaviors? Can we get companies to walk away from billions of dollars they’ve already invested in a fossil fuel-based economy? Insurers are on the front lines of climate disruption; it’s their business to put a price on risk. So how can the financial and insurance sectors create better-aligned...
Clearing the Air on Carbon Offsets
July 02, 2021 08:00 - 55 minutesFor over two decades, carbon offset programs have promised individuals and businesses that they can reduce their overall carbon footprint by paying someone else to reduce their carbon emissions. Yet many programs have been plagued by scandal – like shady accounting and paying forest owners not to cut down trees they weren’t planning to log anyway. A new nonprofit called Climate Vault wants to buy emissions permits from regulated markets and lock them away so other polluters can’t buy and use ...
Extreme Heat: The Silent Killer
June 25, 2021 08:00 - 56 minutesExtreme heat causes more deaths than any other weather-related hazard in the U.S., wreaking quiet havoc on the health and economic well-being of billions of people across the world. But it’s rarely given the same billing or resources as other, more dramatic, natural disasters. Because of racist and discriminatory housing and development practices, extreme heat also disproportionately impacts poorer and minority communities. Recognizing a growing need for local responses to a global problem, t...
Shepard Fairey, Mystic and the Power of Art
June 17, 2021 08:00 - 54 minutesFrom activism to political campaigns to corporate advertising, the power of music and images is undeniable. So how can the arts inspire and advance the climate conversation? For more than three decades, Shepard Fairey’s work has provoked thought and controversy in the art and political spheres. Now, with a public weary of climate charts and apocalyptic images of melting glaciers and emaciated polar bears, we explore how the arts can provoke a more productive conversation with Fairey and Gram...
Colorado River Reckoning: Drought, Climate and Equal Access
June 11, 2021 17:01 - 56 minutesThe Colorado River supplies water to more than 40 million people across seven states. Lake Mead has fallen to its lowest level since it was filled in the 1930s, which could trigger the first stage of real water cutbacks. For years, “much of the discussion in the Colorado River Basin has been who gets the next drop,” says journalist Luke Runyon. “The conversation very recently has shifted to who has to use less.” In the midst of long-term drought, warming temperatures and decreasing runoff, wa...
Finding the Heart to Talk About Climate
June 04, 2021 08:00 - 54 minutesEver have a difficult conversation about climate? Pretty much everyone has. Knowing all the facts and figures only goes so far when talking to someone who just doesn’t agree. So how do we break through the barriers? Scientists trained to present information in a one-way lecture format face a particular challenge: they first need to unlearn old habits. “Everybody's trying to figure out ‘how do we move past this idea that just arming people with facts will lead to a better world,’ right, becaus...
Should Nature Have Rights?
May 28, 2021 08:00 - 58 minutesIf corporations can be legal persons, why can’t Mother Earth? In 2017, New Zealand granted the Whanganui River the full legal rights of a person. India also recently granted full legal rights to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, and recognized that the Himalayan Glaciers have a right to exist. In 2019, the city of Toledo passed the Lake Erie Bill of Rights with 61 percent of the vote, but then a year later, a federal judge struck it down. As Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, an attorney who represented L...
Hot Cities, Methane Leakers and the Catholic Church
May 21, 2021 08:00 - 55 minutesMapping has emerged as a powerful tool for helping humans combat climate disruption. Technology for measuring the totality of global carbon emissions, for example, is highly refined: we know that half of all the carbon pollution humans have dumped into the sky has happened in just the last three decades. But understanding the specific sources of those emissions at the scale of factories or communities has been more elusive. Riley Duren, CEO of Carbon Mapper, has said, “you can’t manage what ...
Journey of a Former Coal Miner
May 14, 2021 08:00 - 54 minutesWhat motivates the activists? Grassroots activism can take many forms, from protests to letter-writing to citizen science to community organizing. But these often more local forms of activism can get short shrift compared to the more powerful, national players in climate and environmental movements. Nick Mullins, a former fifth-generation coal miner, grew up seeing multiple generations of his family endure hardships created by our nation’s demand for cheap coal. In search of decent pay, he be...
Climate Stories We Tell Ourselves
May 07, 2021 08:00 - 54 minutesHow do our identities and values shape the way we listen to others’ climate experience? Author Nathaniel Rich and journalist Meera Subramanian cover the hopes, fears, and middle-of-the-night concerns affecting the people living closest to climate change. In Georgia, farmers were convinced that climate is a political issue — until too-warm winters began upending the Peach State’s prized crop. In a wealthy Los Angeles suburb, an invisible methane gas leak caused outrage and hysteria for local ...
Distorted Democracy and the “Zero-Sum Game”
April 30, 2021 08:00 - 53 minutesIn the US, we’ve become accustomed to climate – like nearly everything else – being politicized. Even when potential solutions might benefit everyone, a zero-sum mentality has taken hold where there’s an “us” and a “them” and progress for them comes at the expense of us. “Racism in our politics and policymaking is distorting our ability to respond to big problems and to advance collective solutions,” says political strategist Heather McGhee. But does it have to be this way? Can we look to the...
Living with Climate Disruption
April 22, 2021 09:00 - 54 minutesGuests: Tamara Conry, Camp Fire survivor Julia Fay Bernal, director of Pueblo Action Alliance Britt Wray, postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University focused on the intersection of mental health and the climate crisis The impacts of climate change may come fast or slow. A wildfire amplified by drought may rip through a town in a matter of hours, or rising seas may take years to destroy a neighborhood. Health impacts may show up in months, or take the form of devastating cancer rates that...
REWIND: Billionaire Wilderness
April 16, 2021 09:00 - 55 minutesFor 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. And while one-percenters have contributed generously to preserve and protect the pristine wilderness they love, the peopl...
Investing in a Clean and Equitable Recovery
April 09, 2021 09:00 - 53 minutesSpeakers: Julian Brave NoiseCat, Vice President of Policy and Strategy, Data for Progress Julie Pullen, Director of Product, Jupiter Intelligence Alicia Seiger, Managing Director, Sustainable Finance Initiative, Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford University The COVID-19 shutdown has hit women and minorities hardest: four times as many women as men dropped out of the workforce in September 2020, with Latina and Black women seeing the highest levels of unemployment. The Biden Administrat...
Entrepreneurs Creating an Inclusive Economy
April 02, 2021 11:00 - 54 minutesGuests: Sandra Kwak, CEO and Founder, 10Power Donnel Baird, CEO, BlocPower Andreas Karelas, Author, Climate Courage: How Tackling Climate Change Can Build Community, Transform the Economy, and Bridge the Political Divide in America Summary: As the spring of 2021 arrives, it would be hard to design a more challenging — or more promising — moment for implementing climate solutions. Americans are reeling from an economic shutdown that’s pushed many out of the workforce, and widened the gap betw...
Weird Winters
March 26, 2021 04:00 - 53 minutesWarmer, shorter winters may sound like an impact of climate change that would inspire more joy than despair. But rising temperatures and decreasing snowpack won’t just transform water supplies and species ranges. It will also disrupt a multi-billion dollar winter sport industry, including the jobs and local economies associated with them. “If we're not able to ski or snowboard anymore,” says Mario Molina, CEO of Protect Our Winters, “the least of our concerns will be the activities that we p...
When Words Aren’t Enough: The Visual Climate Story
March 19, 2021 08:18 - 53 minutesGuests: Céline Cousteau, Explorer and Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, Director, An Inconvenient Truth; Founder, Concordia Studio Cristina Mittermeier, National Geographic Photographer; Co-Founder, SeaLegacy While IPCC risk assessments and emission projections can help us understand climate change, they don’t exactly inspire the imagination or provoke a personal response to the crisis. But a growing league of storytellers is using photographs, films and the human experience to breathe life into t...
The Political Reality of Climate Action
March 12, 2021 10:25 - 52 minutesTrue to his campaign promise, President Biden dove right into the climate crisis on Day One, signing a stack of executive orders that signaled his determination. But how effective are they? “Executive orders, I think, are often very splashy when they're introduced, and they get a lot of attention,” notes Axios reporter Ben Gemen. “I think the better way to look at an executive order is sort of firing a starting gun for an extraordinarily long race.” But while he faces certain blowback from R...
Temperature Check: Science, Texas, and Climate Chaos
March 05, 2021 05:00 - 51 minutesJust two months into 2021, deadly winter temperatures left millions of Texans without water and power. Meanwhile, California is preparing for another year of intense drought, and Wall Street millionaires are moving their remote work to Florida, ground zero for flooding and sea-level rise. “We think about the Earth as a system,” says Marshall Shepherd, director of Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia, “so we can't understand climate change unless we understand changes in t...
John Kerry, Gina McCarthy and Biden’s Climate Team
February 26, 2021 08:00 - 51 minutes“The long-term energy future of America is not going to be written in fossil fuels,” declared John Kerry last April. President Biden recently appointed the former Secretary of State to a top position in his climate cabinet - United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. Joe Biden did not start his campaign as the “climate candidate.” But as he starts his second month as president, he is looking at everything through a climate lens – from jobs and infrastructure to international diplom...
Climate Narratives with Jeff Biggers, Elizabeth Kolbert and Kim Stanley Robinson
February 19, 2021 12:00 - 53 minutesIn the past decade, narratives of a dystopian climate future have helped connect people with heroes in worlds decimated by climate disruption and industrial expansion. In today’s real world, scientists are looking to geo-engineering and other human innovations to preserve the wellbeing of life on Earth. “What we’re missing is a way to galvanize people to support policies that are actually gonna change,” says Jeff Biggers, founder of The Climate Narrative Project. So how can climate storytelli...
Killer Combination: Climate, Health and Poverty
February 11, 2021 23:27 - 51 minutesExperts have warned us that COVID-19 is just one example of climate change-related diseases on the rise. And while climate disruption, environmental health and the current pandemic may seem like three distinct problems, to those in the health and environmental justice field, that’s not the case. "All of them are connected," says Adrienne Hollis of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "And the underlying cause is systemic racism." "If you want to address pandemics, and you want to address climat...
This Moment in Climate with Michael Mann & Leah Stokes
February 05, 2021 09:01 - 53 minutesWith a new pro-science, pro-climate action administration in the White House, there are more pathways — and far greater political will — than ever before for the clean energy transition. The question is now less about what can be done to act on climate, and more about how soon. “We have the best opportunity in more than a decade now to see federal climate action through legislation,” says Leah Stokes from UC Santa Barbara. So how quickly can a new administration turn around a gutted EPA, myr...
Varying Degrees: Climate Change in the American Mind
January 28, 2021 22:22 - 51 minutesA decade ago, a nationwide survey showed that only around twelve percent of Americans were seriously concerned about climate change. Today, public perceptions have changed. “The alarmed are between a quarter and 30% of the public,” says Edward Maibach. “That makes them the largest single segment of Americans…as their name implies, they’re alarmed about climate change.” How does understanding the perceptions of a broadly concerned public enable our leaders to create lasting change? How do cli...
Fast, Fair and Clean: The New Energy Transition
January 22, 2021 16:00 - 53 minutesHopes and expectations are high for President Biden’s first weeks in office. His recovery plans promise to take on COVID-19, a battered economy, and a rapid clean energy transition in a way that doesn’t leave communities behind. But Navajo Nation, which until recently was home to the largest coal-fired power plant in the U.S., has been left out of economic and energy plans for a long time. “The community that has been the provider is the one that has the most homes that don't have access to e...
Biden’s Climate Opportunity (Part 2)
January 15, 2021 06:24 - 53 minutesIncoming President Biden faces an unimaginable set of challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, a gutted economy and a nation reeling from the recent capital attack. With all of that and more on his plate, what of Biden’s plans to fight climate change? “This President-elect has shown that he is absolutely committed to addressing the issue of climate,” says former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman. “Because it affects everything.” Advancing a bipartisan climate agenda will be a ha...
Talk Green, Play Dirty: Corporate America’s Mixed Record
January 08, 2021 06:52 - 53 minutesQuestioning science, funding vocal climate denial groups, and encouraging the focus on personal carbon footprints are corporate America’s preferred tools for shifting the responsibility for action on climate from industry to the individual. “Companies that are very much pro-climate action, that are acting in their own operations, are mostly silent on public policy,” says Bill Weihl, former Sustainability Director at Facebook. But with more workers holding their employers accountable and the ...
REWIND: Erin Brockovich / Inconspicuous Consumption
January 03, 2021 19:33 - 52 minutesTwenty 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. In her mind, the connection is fundamental. “Climate change is about too much water, not enough water, no water, drought, flooding,” Brockovich says, adding, “It’s becoming real because it's tangible, it's touchable. You're run...
Biden’s Climate Opportunity (Part 1)
January 01, 2021 08:10 - 53 minutesPresident-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 s...
REWIND: Reimagining Capitalism / Fossil Fuels in Your Portfolio
December 26, 2020 17:35 - 53 minutesMaintaining 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 ...
Mary Nichols: A Climate Champion’s Legacy
December 11, 2020 06:45 - 53 minutesThroughout 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 Cali...
Breaking Through: A Year of Climate Conversations
December 04, 2020 07:31 - 53 minutes“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.o...
Last Call for Gasoline
November 27, 2020 00:44 - 53 minutesIs 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 e...
REWIND: Racism and Climate / Climate Change Through the Artist’s Eyes
November 20, 2020 06:08 - 53 minutesIn 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 fact...
Cropped Out: Land, Race and Climate
November 13, 2020 07:50 - 53 minutesHarvest 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 ...
The 2020 Election: Anxiety and Incrementalism
November 06, 2020 06:46 - 51 minutesThe 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. “I...
Power Shift: Jamie Margolin and Dorceta Taylor
October 30, 2020 14:56 - 53 minutesWhat 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 T...
Steve Schmidt and Varshini Prakash on Disrupting Climate Politics
October 23, 2020 14:17 - 52 minutesCan 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 greenh...
Climate Ambition with Gina McCarthy, Annie Leonard and Tamara Toles O’Laughlin
October 16, 2020 14:04 - 53 minutesEnvironmental 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 t...
Climate Ambition with Gina McCarthy, Annie Leonard and Tamara Toles O’Laughlin
October 16, 2020 14:04 - 53 minutesEnvironmental 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 t...
A Feminist Climate Renaissance
October 09, 2020 02:52 - 54 minutesPathways 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...
Tech to the Rescue?
October 02, 2020 12:00 - 53 minutesTechnology 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 t...
Tech to the Rescue?
October 02, 2020 12:00 - 53 minutesTechnology 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 ...
Erin Brockovich: Superman’s Not Coming
September 25, 2020 15:00 - 53 minutesTwenty 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 sw...
Daniel Yergin: Energy, Markets and the Clash of Nations
September 18, 2020 03:17 - 53 minutesFrom 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 ef...