Cooler Earth
36 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 3 years ago - ★★★★★ - 39 ratingsWelcome to Cooler Earth, a podcast where we talk with those seeking solutions to the climate crisis. These are the people , leading the movement to keep this planet a livable one. And they’re doing so in ways that ensure equity and justice for all people, specifically those who have been at the frontlines of this crisis.
Each and every day, massive amounts of work and dedication are bringing us closer to addressing climate change on the scale it requires. This series brings you the wonderful stories of people doing the work on the ground in the hopes that it inspires, informs, and mobilizes you to become a solution-seeker yourself.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Episodes
"A world in which no one is disposable"
November 19, 2020 12:00 - 58 minutes - 80.2 MBThe youth climate and environmental justice movement has entirely reshaped the landscape of climate policy and change-making. Young leaders from around the world have been central in not just leading mass mobilizations to demand action on climate and racial justice, but also in redirecting the public narratives and perceptions of the climate crisis and our roles in solving them. Gabriela Rodriguez and John Paul Mejia are the co-hosts of House On Fire, a youth-led podcast powered by the CLEO...
"No economy functions well when people are dying"
November 12, 2020 12:00 - 54 minutes - 74.5 MBInsights into human psychology have provided the climate movement with a wealth of information about how different demographics interpret, process, and behave in regards to messaging and communication strategies. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Mathew Goldberg about his work at Yale’s Program on Climate Change Communication, his research on message persuasion and fossil fuel money in politics; and his insight into how we can better integrate knowledge of human psychology to strengthen suppo...
“This is not a science problem anymore, it’s an everything problem”
November 05, 2020 12:00 - 1 hour - 87.8 MBGenevieve Guenther is a former Shakespeare and renaissance literature scholar, who is now using her extensive knowledge of language and the power of communication to provide tools to strengthen how we talk about the climate crisis. In 2018, she founded End Climate Silence, an organization dedicated to push the media to connect news stories about extreme weather and climate impacts directly to the climate crisis and its causes. For too long, the coverage has been silent about climate science,...
"If you're not centering justice, you’re not going to solve the problem"
October 29, 2020 11:00 - 47 minutes - 65.4 MBSurviving the climate crisis will require collective action on a grand scale; but this action must be led by the communities facing firsthand the impacts of climate change. It is these voices from the frontlines who are most valuable to the movement, and community leaders who are best positioned to make a change and have lasting impact in correcting for overlapping justice issues and lead us to a planet that is not only livable, but just. Mayra Cruz works to build and foster leadership on c...
“It’s not just this future reality, it’s a current reality”
October 22, 2020 11:00 - 52 minutes - 72 MBWhile there is an urgent need to mitigate the climate crisis and the impacts that accompany it, we also need to be thinking about how we plan for and recover from these climate-fueled disasters. Samantha Montano is what you call a “Disasterologist.” She has a doctorate in emergency planning and is currently a professor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Dr. Montano is heavily invested in researching and working on achieving equitable policy around how we plan, prepare, and recover from...
“COVID-19 is the pop quiz but climate change is the final exam”
October 15, 2020 11:00 - 34 minutes - 47.3 MBLauren Kurtz is the Executive Director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF), where she works tirelessly to preserve the integrity of scientific research and defend the livelihoods of scientists facing legal battles. In this episode, we talk with Kurtz about the importance of the legal fight for science in the face of mounting, concerted attacks to suppress, invalidate, and intimidate scientific researchers and the parallels of science denial we’re seeing between climate science a...
"Systemic racism subsidizes the fossil fuel economy"
October 08, 2020 13:20 - 1 hour - 83.5 MBIt’s hard to overstate both the chaos and the stakes surrounding this year’s election. We’re currently facing the overlapping crises of an ongoing pandemic that has shifted the way we can carry out the electoral process, an economic crisis greater than we have seen in over a decade, and the ever-present realities of living in a climate altered world like the wildfires in the West, and this year’s hurricane season. As the climate crisis continues to climb as a top concern for likely voters ...
“You can’t pull up your bootstraps if you don’t have boots”
October 01, 2020 11:00 - 52 minutes - 72.1 MBDr. Mustafa Santiago Ali is a long-time advocate for social and environmental justice. He is currently the Vice President of Environmental Justice, Climate, and Community Revitalization at the National Wildlife Federation, as well as the founder of Revitalization Strategies, an organization dedicated to addressing climate and economic issues in vulnerable communities. In this episode of the podcast, we speak with Dr. Ali about the role faith has played in his work for social justice, the n...
"Sometimes you have to make the good trouble"
September 24, 2020 11:00 - 46 minutes - 63.7 MBWielding the power of the law to change these current realities, and to advance justice and environmental protections is a powerful way to create and codify meaningful, long-lasting change. That is what drives EarthJustice, a nonprofit public interest law organization committed to preserving natural places and wildlife, advancing clean energy, and combating climate change. Today on the podcast, we talk with Adrienne Bloch and Kim Smaczniak of EarthJustice, who are harnessing the power of th...
"Be a little less of an individual”
September 17, 2020 11:00 - 1 hour - 83.9 MBEarlier this year, in May, we had Bill join us for a special webinar series we put together in response to the coronavirus lockdown, as we adjusted to life at home. We thought we would bring that conversation to you in this format, and as a way to kick off the fourth season of our podcast. Our conversation was so salient that we decided to make the audio a special edition for our podcast, Cooler Earth. In 2008, Bill founded 350.org, an organization focused on bringing together a movement to...
E8: "We can't blame our way out of this"
May 30, 2019 10:00 - 29 minutes - 23.4 MBFor the last episode of this season, we are doing things differently, Michael Green, Executive Director of Climate XChange is interviewing our host, Maria Virginia Olano. She speaks on the need to more intentionally craft and deliver innovative and engaging communications strategies and messages to move people to action in the climate space. What decisions drove the episodes, the questions, and the selection of guests, as well as what we can learn from the experts in moving the movement and t...
E7: "Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater"
May 16, 2019 10:00 - 31 minutes - 22.4 MBThis week on the podcast is John Schwartz, a science writer for The New York Times, focusing on climate change; he provides us with a look into the editorial and journalistic process of covering climate change, which is the story of our lifetime. The New York Times, as have many other institutions made deliberate decisions around this coverage, which include tossing out the idea that there are two sides to this story, and the pressing need to include multimedia and creative visuals to attract...
E6: "People want to feel meaning"
May 09, 2019 10:00 - 37 minutes - 27.5 MBThis week on the podcast, we are doing things a little differently. Our guest does not work in the climate field, but is the Executive Director of the organization awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016. Beatrice Fihn leads the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the prize for its work in in highlighting the humanitarian cost and consequences of nuclear weapons. Once again this year, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have identified the two most existen...
E5: “Gravity is just a theory too”
May 02, 2019 10:00 - 33 minutes - 25.7 MBThis week on the podcast, is Susan Joy Hassol, the Director of Climate Communication, a non profit organization aimed at assisting scientists and journalists in communicating climate change effectively and efficiently. She has built a career around the question of how to best communicate climate change, including broad outreach as well as one-on-one coaching. She brilliantly identified the schism between scientific communication and every-day understanding of certain terms, which causes a lot...
E4: “You can’t just scare people into action”
April 25, 2019 10:00 - 31 minutes - 25.2 MBThis week on the podcast, John Kotcher, Ph.D, a Research Assistant Professor at George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication, where he conducts research on science and risk communication. We speak about the role of academic research in furthering advocacy and informing best practices to communicate climate change in a way that does not aim to scare people, but rather mobilize them into action. Climate change perceptions have shifted dramatically among Americans in the pas...
E3: "Showing people research really doesn't work"
April 18, 2019 10:00 - 28 minutes - 22.1 MBAndrew Jones is an expert on international climate and energy issues, he is a system dynamics modeler, keynote speaker, and designer of simulation-based learning environments. He is also the co-founder and co-director of Climate Interactive. On this week’s episode, he speaks about the motivations that led to him start his non-profit, and why he now understands that we need to go beyond simply showing people the research. After spending his own career as a systems modeler who knew the impacts...
E2: “If it’s not your struggle it’s invisible to you”
April 11, 2019 10:00 - 34 minutes - 29.3 MBDr. Atyia Martin is the former Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Boston, and is the Founder and CEO of All Aces Inc. a consulting firm with a mission to further critical thinking in advancing personal and organizational resilience. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Dr. Martin talks to me about the importance of critical thinking and humility in approaching systemic issues such as racism and climate change, and finding our individual roles in perpetuating those systems. This, she b...
E1: "We need all hands on deck"
April 04, 2019 10:00 - 34 minutes - 25.8 MBBoston native Reverend Mariama White-Hammond recently started her own congregation in the city, with a hope to make climate justice a central pillar of her message. I talked with her about the role of faith and spirituality in conveying the message about a changing climate, the forces that keep her going in advocating for social and environmental justice, and why to her, giving up is just not an option. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Now What?
March 28, 2019 13:41 - 1 minute - 1.59 MBA lot of writing and advocacy on climate change these days gets it right about the risk, but wrong about how we try to accomplish the critical goal of raising public concern and moving people to action. That’s because it appeals to reason, and reason is not what drives human behavior. We are sitting down with experts in field for this new segment of our podcast: Now What? Learn with us from faith leaders, professors, campaigners, community advocates, and other awesome humans doing the work,...
Paris Part Deux
December 13, 2018 11:00 - 22 minutes - 31.4 MBProtest is nothing new to France, but over the past month, Paris and some other cities in the country have seen escalating protests, sparked by an eco-tax on fuel due to come into effect in January. Anti-carbon pricing pundits have been quick to point to Paris as a reason why carbon taxes do not work. We think differently, so this week we once again sat down with our Executive Director Michael Green to chat about the significance of the protests in France for climate policy. Hosted on Acast...
The Great Migration
December 06, 2018 11:00 - 26 minutes - 36.4 MBWhat will happen when refugees become more than people fleeing conflict? Climate change is already forcing families to flee their homes due to water scarcity, crop failure, and rising sea levels. It may cause as many as 143 million people to be displaced by 2050. This week we spoke with Erica Bower before her trip to this year's UN Climate Negotiations. She will be beginning a National Geographic Young Explorers Grant in January 2019 to further research a drought-affected Himalayan community ...
The Price of Inaction
November 29, 2018 11:00 - 26 minutes - 36.1 MBCarbon pricing has been in the news a lot lately. The IPCC even dubbed it a critical policy to avoid the worse consequences of climate change. What most people don’t realize though is that many jurisdictions already live under a carbon pricing mechanism, and that there are many different ways the policy can be implemented. We spoke to Jonah Kurman-Faber, a researcher here at CXC, about what it means to put a price on carbon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sand, Salt & Sea Level Rise
November 15, 2018 11:00 - 26 minutes - 36.1 MBThe starkest reality of climate change is that the countries least responsible for emitting greenhouse gases are the ones facing the worst climate impacts. One such state is the island nation of Kiribati, located in the Pacific Ocean, and projected to become increasingly uninhabitable over the next 50 years. We spoke to Janice Cantieri, an environmental journalist and Fulbright National Geographic storyteller, about her work in Kiribati, the importance of storytelling in climate change com...
Greening the Divide
November 08, 2018 11:00 - 34 minutes - 46.9 MBIs climate action inherently against Republican or business interests? Not according to Claudine Schneider. This week, and for the first episode of our second season, we sat down with Claudine, who was the first woman elected to higher office in the state of Rhode Island, representing the state in D.C. for 10 years and earning a reputation as one of the House’s strongest environmental advocates. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Tech in the Clouds
May 31, 2018 10:00 - 24 minutes - 34.3 MBToday, we have the power and technology to change the Earth’s climate as we see fit. Geoengineering. Is it a good idea or a terrible one? What happens if we do it? Or if we don’t? This week we discuss emerging technologies with our guest, Professor of Sustainability Science and Policy, Jennie Stephens. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Root of the Problem
May 24, 2018 10:00 - 30 minutes - 42.5 MBFew sectors are as deeply impacted by changing weather patterns as agriculture. More than 60% of the world’s population depends on it for their livelihood, and the rest of us depend on their work to feed ourselves. We sat down with Laura Kuhl, expert in agriculture adaptation strategies, to discuss the ways we must rethink development in order to become more resilient. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Going for the Green
May 17, 2018 10:00 - 23 minutes - 32.7 MBThe Winter Olympics is a worldwide showcase of competitive snow sports. But how will climate change impact the cities that host these games and the mountainsides that welcome recreational athletes across the globe? We chat with Olympic Biathlete Maddie Phaneuf about how waning winters motivated her advocacy for climate action. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to the Neighborhood
May 10, 2018 10:00 - 32 minutes - 45 MBCan knowing your neighbors be the key to surviving a disaster and thriving in it's aftermath? This week on the podcast, we sit down with a leading expert on social capital and disaster recovery, Daniel Aldrich, to talk about how communities around the world have used their networks to become more resilient. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Talking Trash
May 03, 2018 10:00 - 25 minutes - 35.2 MBIn recognition of Earth Day, we coaxed our office into attempting a zero-waste week. So, how difficult was it? It turns out, very. In a special episode of the podcast, we catch up with our officemates to hear whether they were able to quit plastic and create less trash. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fight Power With Power
April 26, 2018 10:00 - 23 minutes - 31.6 MBWhat if we could create a profoundly more equitable world? Renewable energy has the potential to disrupt power dynamics created by fossil fuels, but the way that transition is implemented will be crucial. This week, we explore the concept of energy democracy with lawyer, activist and author, Shalanda Baker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This is why we can't have ice things
April 19, 2018 10:00 - 19 minutes - 27.5 MBFor decades, controversy has brewed in DC over whether the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be opened to oil and gas exploration. This week, we are exploring the complexities surrounding this controversy with skier and preservation advocate, Brennan Lagasse. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Bugs Know No Borders
April 12, 2018 10:00 - 28 minutes - 38.8 MBThis week, we focus on the ways in which changing climate patterns influence vector-borne diseases, causing a much wider population to be at risk of contracting malaria and lyme disease. John Pontillo joins us to talk about his personal experience living in a community impacted by malaria and how climate change will exasperate public health issues experienced in communities across the globe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Plastic Reefs
April 05, 2018 10:00 - 26 minutes - 29.9 MBCovering 70% of the Earth’s surface, oceans are crucial for sustaining human life and global ecosystems. However, climate change and plastic pollution are affecting our aquatic world in complex and disproportionate ways. Our guest this week is Daisy Kendrick, Founder of Ocean Generation, who joins us to discuss these issues and the ways her organization is spurring younger generations to take action. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Paris or Perish!
March 29, 2018 10:00 - 21 minutes - 18.8 MBWe discuss the Paris Agreement three years into its signing as well as the international climate movement and international policy on climate change more generally. We dive deep into the legal implications of the US President announcing the withdrawal from the Agreement and what it means for the future of international climate action. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The (Carbon) Price is Right
March 22, 2018 13:19 - 26 minutes - 30 MBCarbon pricing has emerged as a market based policy solution to climate change. The general idea is that by making it more costly to pollute, we would eventually decrease demand for fossil fuels while incentivizing alternatives. This week, we discuss the basic concepts around carbon pricing and the bills that have been enacted or introduced so far both in the U.S. and internationally. Our guest this week is Executive Director of Climate XChange and long time advocate of carbon pricing, Micha...
Let's Start With Why
March 13, 2018 13:56 - 23 minutes - 25.8 MBFor our first episode of the podcast we wanted to tell you a little bit about ourselves, our personal stories and the journeys that brought us to work on climate issues. Get to know your hosts and hear a little bit about what to expect from the podcast! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.