The Climate Pod

If you're a regular listener of this show or often engage with the facts of the climate crisis, it's likely you experience a fair deal of climate anxiety. I know I do. So I wanted to dive into those feelings and how to think about processing it all. For over a decade, Kate Schapira has been having these conversations as a part of her Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth. Now, she has a new book out, Lessons from the Climate Anxiety Co...

COP29 is over. A new agreement has been struck. So what the hell happened?

Climate reporter Dharna Noor is here to explain. She was on the ground during the conference to cover it all and she's on the show this week to deep dive into the results and what it means for global climate action. Dharna discusses the complexities and stakes surrounding COP29, how the central theme of climate finance shaped the conference, and the key take...

“Among the growing effects of the climate crisis, the evolution of hurricanes is one of the more immediate and destructive.” Our oceans are warming. Superstorms are intensifying. In Porter Fox's new book, the accelerating danger resulting from these two realities of the climate crisis is on full display. And Fox is no stranger to the ocean - as a longtime sailor and decades-long climate writer, he literally confronts deadly storms ...

As our environment changes, so do our brains. Climate changes impact our physical environments is many noticeable ways, but it's also changing us on the inside as well. Clayton Page Aldern is a neuroscientist turned environmental journalist who has unpacked this phenomenon in his new book, The Weight of Nature: How A Changing Climate Changes Our Brains. He joins the show this week to discuss how our brains adapt to climate change ...

For 57 years, Ed Begley Jr. has been in literally hundreds of your favorite movies and television shows. And during those years, he's also established himself as one of the most prominent voices in Hollywood on environmental sustainability and climate action. Now, he’s with a new memoir, To the Temple of Tranquility…And Step On It!, which recounts his life in both entertainment and environmental and climate advocate. Ed joins us on...

The climate movement faces mounting pressure in 2024. Record-setting temperatures and extreme weather disasters continue to devastate over a turbulent summer. Prominent plans to roll back environmental regulations and stiffle climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives have movement leaders pushing back on attacks. Is the climate movement able to handle the pressure at this critical moment? 

Few people are as equipped to answer t...

In 2008, the world economic system was rocked by a financial crisis that stemmed from risky mortgages being securitized and sold as safe investments to unknowing investors.  Misaligned incentives, unpriced risk, deceptive selling practices, and a lack of regulatory scrutiny throughout the financial industry led to the Great Recession, the consequences of which we're still feeling in a variety of ways today.

While somewhat different...

Bad actors continue to push fake talking points to obscure the truth on climate change and slow down action. So how we combat these common myths and inspire people to do more? That's the focus of today's show and a new book by our guest, Dr. Genevieve Guenther. In her new book, The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil-Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It, Guenther argues that climate leaders should use sharper language that argues f...

For 70 years, building out and expanding American highways have been core parts to the entire US transportation project. But the initial effort to connect cities and states has created gigantic problems in the subsequent decades. Instead of fixing many of these critical issues, too often we see cities and states double down on the problem and make our transportation system worse. And carbon emissions from the transportation sector ...

President Biden campaigned on the promises of producing 100% of America's electricity with clean energy resources by 2035 and getting America's economy to Net Zero emissions by 2050.  Since President Biden took office, the US Congress has passed the Bi-partisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPs and Science Act - all aimed at helping America transition to a clean energy economy.  In addition to creating ...

Mary Annaïse Heglar is back on the show to discuss her new book "Troubled Waters", a fictional account of a young Black woman in Mississippi that uses direct action against the fossil fuel industry as a healing mechanism for her own grief, while also learning about the grief and trauma that her own grandmother carries with her from her days at the center of the Civil Rights movement.  Mary Annaïse Heglar is one of the great essayis...

The climate movement is used to fight denial. Few who do this work escape the need to push back against critics claiming that human-created carbon dioxide emissions don't cause dangerous warming. But as the crisis becomes more clear and everpresent, it's time to expand our definition of climate denial, argues author Tad DeLay. In his new book, Future of Denial: The Ideologies of Climate Change, DeLay confronts the idea that we are ...

Hundreds of billions of dollars have already been invested in clean energy projects in America since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022. With that level of spending, clean energy jobs are on the rise, meaning there's never been a better time to start a career focused on combating the climate crisis. The variety of roles in clean energy jobs means there are plenty of ways you can become a "Climate Person" in your profess...

This week, two Pultizer Prize-winning reporters join the show to discuss their new investigative series, “The Drowning South," and how the threat of sea level rise is causing a number of complex problems in America's southern coastal cities. The Washington Post's Chris Mooney, a reporter covering climate change, energy and the environment, and Brady Dennis, a reporter focusing on environmental policy, public health issues and clima...

In 2018, economist William Nordhaus won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy model, which was the first neoclassical growth model to incorporate the impacts of a warming planet on the global economy.  While celebrated for its economic innovations, the DICE model and its outputs have been criticized by climate scientists for not adequately considering the devastating impacts that a...