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Climate Now episodes
- What happens after forests burn?
2020 was a record breaking season for forest fires in California. Over 4 million acres burned, releasing enough CO2 into the atmosphere to wipe out the prior 18 years of emissions reductions progress in the state. Effective forest restoration and management can make forests more resilient to the increasing threats of climate change: drought, fire and insects, and help ensure that the carbon trapped in those forests stays there. But who should pay the cost of restoring and maintaining those forests?
Mast Reforestation is a company that replants and stewards the regrowth of fire-ravaged forests of the western U.S., many of which cannot grow back without intervention. Their work is paid for by forest carbon credits, a contentious practice of offsetting corporate or personal emissions by paying to grow and/or protect forests that sequester atmospheric carbon via photosynthesis. We sat down with CEO Grant Canary to discuss why active forest regeneration is necessary, whether forest carbon credits are an effective way to pay for that work, and what the alternatives could be.
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Visit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.33 min - Tracking Methane Leaks for Planet and Profit
In September 2022, two pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia across the floor of the North Sea were sabotaged, rupturing and emitting an estimated 500,000 tons of the potent greenhouse gas methane (the primary component of natural gas) into the atmosphere before they could be sealed again. While the impact of these Nord Stream pipeline explosions on climate change was widely covered in the news, they represent a mere blip (about 0.3%) in the amount of methane unintentionally leaking into the atmosphere each year from oil and gas operations.
This week, we talk with Christophe McGlade of the International Energy Agency about why so much methane leaks from oil and gas infrastructure, and why - until now, its climate impact has been so little recognized. We also explore how new methane tracking tools allow companies and corporations to quickly and economically stop methane leaks, and why this could make a powerful dent in global greenhouse gas emissions.
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Visit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.38 min - Getting on track with home decarbonization
The Biden Administration in the U.S. has set a goal of achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, which among other things means that U.S. households, and the appliances and machines that run within them, will need to be powered almost entirely by carbon-free electricity. A practical implication of that goal is that about 1 billion machines in homes across the nation will need to be replaced or converted from fossil-powered to electric within the next 3 decades. It sounds like a lot - but is it?
A recent report from the nonprofit Rewiring America examined how quickly high-efficiency, electric technologies – like heat pumps, EV vehicles and induction stoves – are replacing sales of their fossil-powered counterparts, and compared that to what needs to happen this year, next year, and over the next five years to ensure that American homes are on track to decarbonize. So are we on track? What needs to happen in the near-term to ensure we reach our mid-century decarbonization goals? And what are the most impactful upgrades that people can make to their homes to support the decarbonization movement? Rewiring America’s Director of Research Cora Wyent and Head of Market Transformation Stephen Pantano sat down with Climate Now to break it down.
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In 2003, the U.S. Department of Defense released a report entitled, “An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States national security,” which “imagined the unthinkable” – that gradual global warming could lead to relatively abrupt changes in climate patterns, significantly reducing global food production, and with it “the human carrying capacity of the Earth’s environment.” Two decades later, the scenario of abrupt climatic shifts resulting from global warming is not so unthinkable, and the U.S. military now formally regards climate change as a threat, according to Meredith Berger, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and the Environment.
In 2022, three branches of the U.S. military (Army, Navy and Air Force) released climate strategies detailing decarbonization goals for their operations. Ms. Berger is responsible for overseeing implementation and execution of the Department of the Navy’s climate strategy, which includes commitments to 100% carbon pollution free electricity by 2030, a 50% reduction in building emissions by 2032, and optimizing route planning and ship speed to maximize fuel efficiency. Climate Now spoke with Meredith Berger to discuss why climate change is classified as a threat to national security, how a climate strategy aligns with the mission of the navy, and how the navy plans to reach their decarbonization goals.
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Visit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.38 min - Less waste, more energy
Landfills emit about 2% of the world's greenhouse gases, but in terms of lowering global emissions, they represent some of the lowest hanging fruit. When organic waste – like municipal food waste, agricultural waste, and forest residue – is disposed of by burial in a landfill or incineration, the organic material within is broken down to methane or CO2, and released to the atmosphere. But if that organic waste is diverted to other forms of disposal, those emissions could be avoided.
Steve Wirtel, the Executive Vice President of Business Development at Kore Infrastructure, joined Climate Now to explain how Kore’s biomass thermal conversion (slow pyrolysis) process can be used to dispose of organic waste, sequester carbon and generate energy. We explore how Kore’s modular design works, how it can be adapted for various feedstock inputs and consumer products (including hydrogen), how this kind of technology is financed, and how slow pyrolysis can align with emission reduction legislation and environmental justice objectives.
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Visit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.33 min - June 12: This Week in Climate NewsClimate Now is taking a break this week - but will be back on June 20 with one more solution we can include in our portfolio of opportunities to tackle climate change. Read more below, and stay tuned.
In the meantime, take a listen to our 'This Week in Climate News' segment, and catch up on some past episodes about how we can all do more to address climate change - from the policy level to grass roots movements, there is always something we can do.
This Week in Climate News: One of the greatest difficulties in addressing climate change has been how invisible the crisis was. You cannot see the 40 billion metric tons of CO2 being added to the atmosphere each year, or necessarily feel that average global temperatures have risen more than 1 degree C since the late 1800's.
But this week, for many parts of North America, the urgency of the climate crisis could be seen and felt – in people's eyes, noses and lungs. Record breaking forest fires have consumed more than 9 million acres in Canada in the last month, and impacted air quality as far south as North Carolina.
The fires are tragic, but not a surprise, as the correlation between increasing global temperatures and forest fires could not be more direct. One clear illustration of this comes from a 2004 study of – ironically – Canadian forests.
The study showed that for every degree C departure from the 20th century temperature average, about 10 thousand square kilometers (2.5 million acres) more forest burned than a typical season. The hotter, drier and longer the summers, the more fuel available for the flames.
For reference, in May of 2023, Canada experienced temperatures that were 10 degrees C higher than average. Such a relationship illustrates why it is so critical to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, rather than the 2.7 degree rise that we are on track to reach with current global policies. Canada, and other high-latitude countries will likely experience temperature increases as much as four times higher than the global average, which means most summers would feel temperatures similar to this year's May weather. It also means that unless we act fast, the orange smoky haze blanketing the eastern seaboard this past week may not just be a moment to "see and feel" climate change. It might be the new color of summer.Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
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Since humans began settling down and building civilizations 10,000 years ago, the Earth's climate has been relatively stable. But before that, the climate was more unstable - unpredictable - and humans were nomads, forced to follow the good climate for food and shelter. Today, the global average temperature is higher than it has ever been since the beginning of civilization. What does this mean for the future of human civilization? Could this mean a return to instability? Can we make civilization resilient to such dramatic changes in climate that we have never before experienced as a society?
Dr. Spencer Glendon of Probable Futures joins Climate Now to speak about his work to change how we think about, talk about, and plan for the future of society.
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A 2022 study by Yale University found that two thirds of Americans (67%) rarely or never talk about climate change, and rarely or never hear people they know talking about it either. Despite the existential threat that it poses, one third of Americans (32%) only hear about global warming in the media a few times a year - or less!
Are these statistics shocking? Or does it matter that people don’t talk much about climate change? How important is public awareness and public discussion in the fight to address climate change? How much does public opinion shape climate policy, or drive individuals to reduce their own climate impacts? And, if climate communication IS important, how do we get more conversations started?To mark Climate Now’s 100th episode, we partnered with the Network for Business Sustainability (NBS) to take an introspective look at the role of science communication: how does talking about climate change help address it? We are joined by three experts who look at communication in different ways: David Fenton, Founder of Fenton Communications, a social change communications firm, Leah Thomas, Founder of Intersectional Environmentalist - a climate justice collective known for its reach in environmental storytelling through social media, and Dr. Elke Weber, Professor in Energy and the Environment and in Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Together, we examine why communicating about climate change is hard, why we need to do it anyway, and what strategies, tools and events have the biggest impact in increasing awareness of the climate crisis and motivation to develop solutions.
Interested in how this knowledge could inform workplace climate conversations? Our partners at NBS just published an article on that subject, based on these interviews. Check it out!
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Visit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.43 min - The evidence for peak fossil electricity
In 1909, headlines declared the U.S. would run out of petroleum by 1940. In 1945, the estimate was that the U.S. had 13 more years of petroleum reserves left. In 1966, we only had 10 more years before the “figurative dipstick in the United States’ oil supplies” came out dry. In the 1970’s United States, alarmist projections about exponential growth of energy demands expected that we would run out of fossil fuels by the year 2000, and yet - since 2000, our consumption of energy from fossil fuels has nearly doubled.
We have a pretty consistent track record of underestimating our available fuel reserves, and how much of those reserves we will consume as technology changes and efficiency increases. In this episode, Kingsmill Bond (Energy Strategist at RMI) and Nat Bullard (Senior Contributor with BloombergNEF) examine why it is so difficult to anticipate our future energy needs and their costs. Kingsmill Bond posits in his recent report that this is the beginning of the end of fossil fuel demand for electricity, and investors are starting to take note.
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Visit our website for all of our content and sources for each episode.40 min - Fixing the problems with ESG investing
According to a 2022 poll from the Associated Press, although 93% of Americans acknowledge that human activity impacts climate, nearly half of Americans (47%) feel that their actions don’t have an impact on climate change. And yet, we know – it is the collective momentum of tiny particles of snow that drive an avalanche.
In our upcoming episode, Climate Now sits down with James Regulinski, co-founder of Carbon Collective, to discuss the role of investing - even among individual, “retail” investors - in determining the pace at which clean energy technologies can replace our global dependence on fossil fuels. We will discuss why investing in your retirement and investing in clean energy technologies can be well-aligned endeavors, why most environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment portfolios aren’t having the impact they should, and why even small investments can make a big difference in accelerating the path to decarbonization.
Carbon Collective Disclaimer regarding the use of MSCI data to develop ESG funds:The claims Carbon Collectively repeatedly makes are:
- MSCI explicitly states that their data should not be used to determine how good or ethical a company is, just as supplemental data to understand its exposure to risk from ESG-related issues. This means the use of the data as a measure of how ethical your portfolio is, is not supported by the data provider, even when it is sold as such.
- MSCI (and other data providers) use data that is self-reported by the companies. This data is not standardized or verified by MSCI or anyone. The result is data that is noisy/inconsistent. When used to build funds, the fund design is inconsistent with scientific reports of the actions we need to take to address the E of ESG. For example, the IPCC report states that if we want to stay below 2 deg warming (which is already disastrously high), we can not invest any new money in fossil fuel exploration or reserve development. However, funds using MSCI data routinely have oil and gas companies. This is not MSCI's "fault," but it is an artifact of using that data.
- When you use single-factor scores to judge a company, unrelated factors can "balance" each other out. So a high S score can balance a low E score. This can also lead to the inclusion of companies that are inconsistent with models of how we solve climate change.
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About Climate Now
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Explaining the key scientific ideas, technologies, and policies relevant to the global climate crisis. Visit climatenow.com for more information, video series, and events.