Climate One
796 episodes - English - Latest episode: 14 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
Law and Disorder: Climate Change in the Courts
October 18, 2019 07:09 - 51 minutesThe jury is out on whether our legal system is equipped to deal with climate change. While some parts of the country are inundated by floods, others are resisting the growth of oil and gas infrastructure — and both are running into the law. Do youth have a constitutional right to a clean environment? At what point should disaster preparedness become disaster law? Does water have legal rights? A discussion on how many facets of the climate challenge are pushing, and changing, the law. Visit...
Scorched Earth: Culture and Climate Under Siege
October 11, 2019 00:05 - 51 minutesFrom the Amazon to the Congo to California, our planet’s forests are being decimated. And along with them, the stability of our climate. Why? Because trees are among our most effective weapons against carbon emissions. The Amazon alone is responsible for removing five percent of the world’s 40 billion tons of CO2 emissions from the air each year. When forests burn, carbon storage is lost -- along with biodiversity, indigenous culture, and more. Join us for a conversation about the climate ...
Jonathan Safran Foer: We Are the Weather
October 08, 2019 15:41 - 51 minutesIs clinging to habits and cravings destroying our future? An outspoken critic of factory farming and animal-centric diets, Jonathan Safran Foer writes that stopping climate change begins with a close look at what we eat — and don’t eat — at home for breakfast. At the office, industry leaders like Google are taking steps toward veggie-forward diets by reducing meat, rather than cutting it out entirely. But when it comes to global food habits, are societies up for changing norms — individually ...
Heavy Weather: Balancing Joy and Despair
September 26, 2019 22:49 - 51 minutesCan we still find happiness in our daily lives without ignoring the dark reality of climate chaos? Author and meditation teacher Mark Coleman recalls experiencing just that juxtaposition of joy and sadness working on an article on a ridgetop north of San Francisco during the wildfires of late 2018. “It was just such a poignant moment of going into nature for refuge and solace and at the same time being reminded of the fires and the climate crisis,” Coleman says, noting the irony that he the ...
My Climate Story: Terry Root
September 20, 2019 00:58 - 26 minutesScientist Terry Root’s research has helped reveal how climate change puts bird and animal species at risk for extinction. For Root, the climate connection is also personal: she was married to the late Steve Schneider, a Stanford professor and pioneer in communicating the impacts of climate change, who died suddenly in 2010. “It's been a fabulous career, but it has been very painful at times, very painful,” says Root, who was the lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change F...
A Tale of Two Cities: Miami and Detroit
September 19, 2019 23:48 - 51 minutesClimate change is upending Miami’s real estate markets, turning one of its poorest neighborhoods into some of the most desirable real estate around. It’s a phenomenon known as “climate gentrification,” a term coined by urban studies professor Jesse Keenan. In a 2018 paper, Keenan writes that while gentrification is most often driven by supply – that is, a surplus of devalued property that invites development and transformation – climate gentrification is the opposite. “[It]is really about a...
My Climate Story: Ben Santer
September 17, 2019 23:32 - 29 minutesIn 1995, Ben Santer authored one of the most important sentences in the history of climate science: “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” While one of the first statements to identify humans’ role in driving climate change, the vitriol that followed was personal and malicious, impacting both Santer’s career and family. “If you spend your entire career trying to advance understanding, you can't walk away from that understanding when someone critic...
From Wheels to Wings: Our Flying Car Future
September 13, 2019 16:33 - 51 minutesCan we beat the traffic by taking to the skies? For more than a century, the automobile has ruled our city streets, chaining us to grid-shaped streets choked with lines of traffic. And for many of us, seemingly endless hours of daily commuting. “But what if we can remove those chains?” asks JoeBen Bevirt of Joby Aviation. “What do our lives, what do our cities, how does the world look 20 years from now or 50 years from now? That's what gets me up everyday. “So my mission is to save a billi...
How Pro Sports Can Be a Player in Climate
September 06, 2019 17:37 - 51 minutesFrom stadiums packed with fans, to food, beer, and waste – pro sports can have a big carbon footprint. But could the core values of athletics — integrity, teamwork, and commitment — be the same values we need to tackle the climate challenge? ”Doing sports the right way is more important now than ever,” says Jim Thompson, Founder of the Positive Coaching Alliance. “We spent a lot of time as adults trying to get kids to do certain things. What if we spend our time trying to encourage them to b...
Carbon Offsets: Privileged Pollution?
August 30, 2019 16:02 - 51 minutesA carbon offset is a credit – a way to offset a unit of pollution created in one place by, say, planting a tree, or otherwise sequestering carbon, somewhere else. But in the race to bring carbon emissions to zero, are offsets a legitimate tool, or a delusion that allows heavy emitters a way out of taking real action? “I just need to recruit everybody to make sure the forests remain forests and the farmlands have as many trees as possible,” says Pauline Kalunda, Executive Director of Ecotrust...
Tom Steyer: Power Disruptor?
August 23, 2019 16:48 - 51 minutesWould you vote for the candidate who says he’ll declare climate change a national emergency on Day One of his presidency? Businessman and activist Tom Steyer says his willingness to use emergency powers to deal with the climate crisis sets him apart from the crowded field of Democratic candidates. “You have to start on day one, urgently – it's an emergency, treat it like an emergency,” Steyer urges. “I would give the Congress a 100 days … to pass something like the Green New Deal, but they'...
Superpower: How Renewables are Transforming America’s Energy Future
August 16, 2019 16:24 - 51 minutesWhat’s new in renewable energy? In April, 23 percent of America’s electricity came from renewables, surpassing coal for the first time. Ten states, and Puerto Rico and Washington DC, have policies in place to run on 100 percent clean power in coming decades. Achieving that presents a host of challenges, from updating an aging electricity grid to financing energy innovation to figuring out how to transport and store the renewable power. Fortunately, says author Russell Gold, we have the talen...
The Land of Dreams and Drought
August 09, 2019 17:07 - 51 minutesThe California dream, with its promise of never-ending sunshine, fertile soil and rivers running with gold, has been beckoning people west for over two hundred years. But making that dream come true for an ever-increasing population has taken its toll on the landscape. Is the California dream coming to an end? When its current water system was built in the 1960s and ‘70s, California’s population was about half of the forty million who live there today. And every one of its citizens needs wat...
Drawdown: Do We Have What It Takes to Solve Climate Change?
August 02, 2019 16:21 - 51 minutesWhen it comes to solving climate change, where do we start? The organization Project Drawdown has published a list of top solutions for climate change – impactful actions already in existence that not only reduce carbon emissions, but also improve lives, create jobs and generate community resilience. “If you’re thinking about how to solve climate change here's where you start,” says Jonathan Foley, Project Drawdown’s executive director. “Electricity is about a quarter of the problem. Food, ag...
The Art of the Green Deal
July 26, 2019 17:51 - 51 minutesThe climate conversation in Washington has changed enough that Democrats and Republicans are talking climate deals. A lot of that change can be attributed to the Green New Deal, a Democratic resolution introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey. “What we're doing with the Green New Deal is we’re putting together an army that won't just be a resolution, it's a revolution,” boasts Markey, who has served over 40 years in Congress and co-authored the last big legislative pus...
The Fate of Food
July 19, 2019 02:44 - 52 minutesHow will we feed a planet that’s hotter, drier, and more crowded than ever? Much of it starts with innovators who are trying to re-invent the global food system to be more productive and nutritious. Vanderbilt University Journalism professor Amanda Little chronicles some of these efforts in her new book, The Fate of Food: What We'll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World. “We see disruption in the auto industry, we see disruption in tobacco – disruption is coming in the meat industry,” says ...
Cities for the Future
July 12, 2019 17:04 - 52 minutesWhen Ridley Scott envisioned the dystopian Los Angeles of 2019 in “Blade Runner,” he probably didn’t think about how much energy would be needed to run those flying cars and sky-high animated billboards. Or what all those carbon emissions would be doing to the climate. We’re now living in the world of 2019. Flying cars are still in the future. But with over half of the global population living in urban centers, and another 2.5 billion expected to join them by 2050, maybe it’s time to take a ...
David Wallace-Wells: The Uninhabitable Earth
June 28, 2019 18:47 - 52 minutesAt what point does Planet Earth become inhospitable to life – let alone a flourishing human civilization? In his new book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, David Wallace-Wells explores how climate change will impact not just the planet, but human lives – including how a five degree increase in temperatures would make parts of the planet unsurvivable. “The more I learned about the science the deeper I got into it… the more scared I was,” he admits, “and from where I sat as a jou...
Can a Circular Economy Salvage the Climate?
June 20, 2019 23:04 - 50 minutesProduce, consume, discard; we all know the routine. Raw materials are extracted, produced into goods, and used – sometimes only once – before turning into waste. And maybe we think that recycling that Starbucks cup or Smartwater bottle is the best we can do for the planet. But that’s the wrong way to think about it, says John Lanier of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation. “Recycling is not the answer or the solution to advancing the circular economy,” Lanier asserts. It's an answer, but actually...
Jay Inslee: The Climate Candidate
June 14, 2019 20:27 - 52 minutesAs the 2020 presidential election approaches, Greg Dalton will be sitting down with some of the candidates to talk about their plans for a clean energy supply, a greener economy, and their specific strategies for addressing the climate crisis as President of the United States. Keep your eyes out for those episodes on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Washington Governor Jay Inslee is a notable departure from other Democratic presidential hopefuls who regularly mention, but ...
If You Won't, We Will: Youth Action on Climate
May 31, 2019 20:47 - 52 minutesAlthough many climate conversations talk about impacts on future generations, all too often those younger generations are not at the table or in the room. So how are young people taking charge of their climate future? For Isha Clarke, a high school student and activist from Oakland, California, by speaking truth to the senior U.S. Senator from her state. “I think that truth is respectful and that you can speak truth in a way that is compassionate and authentic,” says Clarke, who recently gai...
David Gergen on Climate Politics and Public Opinion
May 31, 2019 20:19 - 51 minutes“This is turning out exactly the way scientists predicted, with one exception: it’s happening faster than they thought,” says political analyst David Gergen, who served in four presidential administrations. “The question is what can we do rapidly that would alleviate this and be fair to all.” Gergen is in favor of urgent acting on climate, but is skeptical of the all-encompassing vision of the Green New Deal. “The last thing we need is another fight that leads to a big environmental bill tha...
Republicans and a Democrat on Climate
May 17, 2019 19:43 - 50 minutesThis program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of San Francisco on April 30, 2019. During the 2016 presidential election, climate change barely surfaced as a campaign topic. This cycle it’s a different story. “It’s gonna be the first election where it's a major issue,” predicts former congressman Carlos Curbelo (R-FL). “I don't support it, but we can thank the Green New Deal for that.” Democrats have rallied around the Green New Deal and its lofty promise o...
Sea Changes: Why Oceans Play a Bigger Role in Climate Change Than You Think
May 10, 2019 15:43 - 51 minutesGlobal temperatures would be soaring even higher were it not for a powerful heat-trapping ally: oceans. From regulating the temperature of the planet to generating half of the oxygen we breathe, oceans are a vital part of sustaining life on Earth. Increasing their temperature as little as two degrees, however, has an opposite effect, threatening marine biodiversity and turbocharging dangerous hurricanes and typhoons. But there are bright prospects on the horizon for humans and oceans. Join us...
How Climate Broke California’s Biggest Utility
May 03, 2019 04:59 - 53 minutesPG&E has had a bad few years. A series of record-breaking wildfires culminating with 2018’s devastating Camp Fire propelled the California utility giant into lawsuits, $30 billion in liabilities and, ultimately, bankruptcy. Under new state laws, regulated utilities will have a hard time avoiding blame in fires where their equipment is involved—so what’s ahead for PG&E’s peers and their shareholders when a deadly blaze could spell bankruptcy? What happens when the California dream of living ne...
Oppressive Heat: Climate Change as a Civil Rights Issue
April 25, 2019 23:52 - 51 minutesWhile the environmental movement is typically associated with upper-class white folk, it is also a civil rights issue. Communities of color often live closest to factories and refineries that spew toxic pollution. That’s one reason why polls show more African Americans and Latinos say climate is a serious concern than whites. So why do environmental movements lack diversity, and why has it been so difficult for nonprofits to reach communities of color? We talk to hip hop artist and activist,...
REWIND: Oppressive Heat: Climate Change as a Civil Rights Issue
April 25, 2019 23:52 - 51 minutesWhile the environmental movement is typically associated with upper-class white folk, it is also a civil rights issue. Communities of color often live closest to factories and refineries that spew toxic pollution. That’s one reason why polls show more African Americans and Latinos say climate is a serious concern than whites. So why do environmental movements lack diversity, and why has it been so difficult for nonprofits to reach communities of color? Guests: Ingrid Brostrom, Assistant Dir...
Fighting Fossil Fuels All the Way to Prison
April 20, 2019 03:09 - 49 minutesHow far would you go to make your voice heard on climate change? College student Tim DeChristopher disrupted an auction for oil and gas leases - and landed in prison. Georgia Hirsty and other Greenpeace activists suspended themselves from a Portland bridge to protest an oil rig bound for the Arctic. Such extreme activism gets headlines, and sometimes results. But is radical civil disobedience the most effective weapon for change? Or is collaborating with corporations to encourage sustaina...
Climate One at Harvard With Obama’s Climate Team
April 12, 2019 23:00 - 51 minutesWith the Green New Deal in the national spotlight, a vigorous debate is happening: how ambitiously and broadly must the U.S. act on climate? Are issues like economic equity, job security and public health outside the frame of climate action — or fundamental to its success? Greg Dalton welcomes two key members of President Obama’s climate team: former White House Science Advisor John Holdren and former U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, in a special program recorded at the Harvard T.H. Chan...
The New Surf and Turf
April 05, 2019 15:05 - 49 minutesProduction of animal protein is producing vast amounts of climate-eating gases. But a new generation of companies are creating innovative food products that mimic meat and have much smaller environmental impacts. Some of this mock meat is derived from plants with ingredients designed to replicate the taste and pleasure of chomping into a beef hamburger. Others are growing meat cells that come from a laboratory and not a cow. Could these and other culinary innovations wean Americans away from...
Insane Mode: Tesla’s Wild Ride
March 29, 2019 15:02 - 49 minutesDespite having the top-selling luxury car in 2018, and a loyal if not rabid customer base, Tesla has been facing major challenges. In August, maverick CEO Elon Musk was slapped with SEC charges over some rather misleading tweets. That move cost him and the company millions in fines and forced Musk to step down as chairman. Other skidmarks for Tesla include production delays, shareholder skittishness and some well-publicized workplace complaints. Host Greg Dalton invites three journalists and ...
Naturally Wired: Getting Outside in the Digital Age
March 22, 2019 14:39 - 51 minutesWhat does it take to get people off their phones and into the outdoors? Research has shown the deleterious effects of electronics on weight, sleep, and cognitive development in children, who in 2018 spend four hours or more each day glued to screens. Other barriers like income and proximity to nature make access to the outdoors extremely challenging for some families. Meanwhile, doctors have started prescribing hikes over medications, and terms like “forest schools” and “unstructured playtime...
EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler on Cars, Coal, and Climate
March 15, 2019 03:22 - 52 minutesGreg Dalton sits down for a rare interview with newly-confirmed U.S. EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler on cars, coal, and climate. Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board, responds to Wheeler’s position on vehicle standards, and discusses her agency’s role leading a group of states in contesting the Trump administration’s revised auto emissions rules. Also featuring Albert Cheung of Bloomberg New Energy Finance on the future of personal mobility, and Helen Clarkson of The Climate Gr...
If Global Warming Exists, Why is it so Cold Outside?
March 08, 2019 17:03 - 50 minutesThe last five years have been the hottest on record globally. But this past winter, plunging temperatures, snowstorms and torrential rains throughout the country have a lot of people questioning the reality of climate change. If the planet is warming up, why is the Midwest suffering record cold temperatures? Climate scientists, communicators and educators join us to talk about about why, after one of the hottest years on record, the country has suddenly gone into deep freeze. On today’s Cli...
Weathering the Storm in America's Cities
March 01, 2019 17:23 - 51 minutesFrom floods and fires to heavy snow and hurricanes, recent years have brought a raft of extreme weather disasters costing the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars in damages. How do we fight back? The mayors of three cities on the front lines of climate change – Houston, Miami, and Columbia, South Carolina – discuss what their cities are doing to recover, rebuild and prepare for the next mega-storm. And Seattle Times reporter Jon Talton explains why he thinks fighting climate change should be...
Donor Power: The Influence of Climate Philanthropy
February 22, 2019 06:54 - 50 minutesFighting climate change isn’t cheap. Where’s the money coming from? Major philanthropic organizations like Hewlett and Bloomberg are at the forefront of addressing climate change, but could smaller funders be more in touch with grassroots needs? Are big donors out of touch – or just stretched too far? Where is the money coming from, where is it going, what are the biggest wins and what missteps are being made along the way? Greg Dalton is joined by donors big and small for a discussion on ha...
Can California Go Carbon Neutral?
February 15, 2019 01:00 - 51 minutesJust ten years ago, an entire state running on 100% renewable electricity seemed fanciful. But this dreamy vision became reality when, with the backing of big utilities, California committed to 100% use of zero-carbon electricity by 2045. A statewide pledge to go carbon-neutral by 2045 raised the stakes even higher. So what will it take for California to achieve such a feat? Will Governor Gavin Newsom embrace climate initiatives started by former Governor Jerry Brown? Join us in a discussion ...
Katharine Hayhoe: Why We Need to Talk About Climate Change
February 08, 2019 17:54 - 50 minutesMany of us find it daunting to talk with our neighbors, colleagues and family members about climate change. But climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe says that having those difficult conversations is the first step towards solving the problem. Hayhoe is known as a “rock star” in the climate world for her ability to talk to just about anyone about global warming. She is joined by Stanford atmospheric scientist Noah Diffenbaugh for a conversation about communicating climate change in transparent,...
How Some Countries Are Solving Climate Change
February 01, 2019 17:18 - 51 minutesWhen it comes to cutting emissions, there are many paths to success. Sweden, France, South Korea, and Ontario have all taken steps to replace fossil fuels with nuclear, hydro and renewable energy, while China is expanding electric car and battery production. But the absence of U.S. climate leadership is causing heads of state to ease off their goals, and violent protests in France against higher diesel taxes are casting a shadow over efforts to combat climate change. Join us for a discussion ...
Cool Clean Tech
January 25, 2019 21:52Over a century ago, the industrial revolution brought wealth and opportunity to a generation of American innovators. It also brought us dirty coal power and a sky clogged with carbon emissions. The good news? There’s a new generation of entrepreneurs eager to make their fortune by fighting global warming. Creative start-ups are coming up with fresh, climate-friendly ideas for getting around town, powering your cell phones, and even eating breakfast. And there are a growing number of forward-...
We’re Doomed – Now What?
January 20, 2019 18:11 - 52 minutesCan changing our consciousness hold off the climate apocalypse? When we think about the enormity of climate change and what it’s doing to our planet, it’s easy to get overwhelmed, even shut down, by despair. But is despair such a bad place to be? Or could it be the one thing that finally spurs us to action? A conversation about climate change, spirituality and the human condition in unsettling times. Guests: Roy Scranton, Author, We're Doomed. Now What? (Soho Press, 2018) Matthew Fox, Co-Aut...
The Hidden Health Hazards of Climate Change
January 13, 2019 02:57Climate change isn’t just an environmental problem – it’s also a health hazard. Air pollution and changing weather patterns give rise to heat-related illnesses, asthma and allergic disorders. Hurricanes and other disasters leave hospitals scrambling to save patients without power and resources. According to the Centers for Disease Control, insect-borne diseases have tripled in the United States in recent years – and warmer weather is largely to blame. Jonathan Patz, of the Global Health...
The Paris Agreement at Three: Floundering or Flourishing?
January 03, 2019 23:27 - 51 minutesIn its infancy, the Paris Agreement carried the promise of a truly global climate solution. Supporters still say the Agreement is the first step in setting the global economy toward a sustainable future, but U.N. reports now say current commitments are only a fraction as strong as they need to be, and critics say it's dangerously delusional to think the pact is ambitious enough to avoid catastrophic climate change. Katharine Mach, Senior Research Scientist at Stanford University, and Trevor H...
Going Carbon Negative
December 28, 2018 14:15 - 50 minutesThe math is clear: lowering greenhouse gas emissions is not enough to keep the earth below 1.5 degrees Celsius of post-industrial warming. The latest science states that actively removing carbon from the atmosphere — storing it in rocks, soil, trees, and even turning it into products like concrete — is critical to restore the carbon and energy balance. To keep our planet from dangerous levels of warming, we’ll need to go carbon negative. Which natural and technological approaches are the most...
The Big Climate Stories of 2018
December 21, 2018 20:39 - 51 minutesWe’re making a list (and checking it twice) of 2018’s biggest climate stories, with the help of Vox reporter David Roberts. Roberts notes that while President Trump’s continued rollbacks of environmental protections made the news, the Green New Deal and ongoing decline in costs of clean energy technologies are the year’s big stories. For other parts of the country, wildfires and other extreme weather events made the biggest headlines. Greg Dalton talks to some of California’s leading wildfire...
Mind Over Chatter: Exploring Climate Psychology
December 14, 2018 18:07 - 49 minutesWe all know about the environmental and physical effects of climate change. But what about its impact on our mental health? Therapists report that their patients are exhibiting symptoms of what they call “climate anxiety” – loss of sleep, changes in appetite, feelings of grief, anger and hopelessness. How do we maintain our optimism in the face of a global existential crisis? And how do we talk with others about our fears without turning them off – or freaking them out? Three climate psycholo...
Fire and Water: A Year of Climate Conversations
December 07, 2018 23:27 - 52 minutesFrom fires and floods to hurricanes and hot temperatures, 2018 put climate on the front page in ways it hadn’t been before. Yet amidst the disruption, clean energy prices continued to fall, climate-conscious technologies continued to progress, and people living on the front lines of climate change found ways to adapt and thrive. Join us for a look back on some of our most memorable conversations of 2018. Guests (in order of appearance): Lizzie Johnson Scott Stephens Francis Suarez Steve Ben...
A Four-Zero Climate Solution
November 30, 2018 19:33 - 50 minutesStabilizing our climate is going to take some hard truths – and hard numbers. “If you look at 1.5 degrees, it's about 13 years,” says Stanford’s Arun Majumdar. “If you look at 2 degrees, it’s 20 years. And after that, it’s zero.” We can fight back with the power of zero: a zero-carbon grid, zero-emission vehicles, zero-net energy buildings and zero-waste manufacturing. Whether through massive technological breakthroughs or deployment of existing technologies, powering these opportunities wil...
Documentaries for the Holiday Season
November 27, 2018 20:28 - 52 minutesIt’s a holiday movie special as Climate One talks to the directors/producers of four recent documentaries that bring human drama to the climate story: Hillbilly, which explores the myths and realities of life in the Appalachian coalfields; My Country No More, the story of one rural community divided by the North Dakota oil boom; Saving the Dark, which focuses on the battle of dark-sky enthusiasts to fight light pollution; and Point of No Return, in which two pilots risk their lives fl...
Are Human Lives Improving?
November 15, 2018 19:00 - 50 minutesIn their 1968 book The Population Bomb, Paul and Anne Ehrlich warned of the dangers of overpopulation. These included mass starvation, societal upheaval and environmental ruin. This and other dire predictions about humankind earned Ehrlich a reputation as a prophet of doom, and fifty years later he doesn’t see much in the way of improvement. Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, on the other hand, prefers to look on the bright side: people are living longer, extreme poverty has been d...