Climate One

By Climate One from The Commonwealth Club

Social Sciences

What's Climate One about?

We’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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Naomi Klein and Carolyn Bee...

09.22.2023

The climate crisis can be difficult to cover in a way that most people can relate to. The mechanism of harm goes from a person's gas car or stove to the Earth's atmosphere and back again in the form of ...

Climate One episodes:

09.22.2023 Naomi Klein and Carolyn Beeler: Covering Big Ideas and Personal Stories The climate crisis can be difficult to cover in a way that most people can relate to. The mechanism of harm goes from a person's gas car or stove to the Earth's atmosphere and back again in the form of ...
09.19.2023 Official Trailer: Climate One We’re living through a climate emergency; addressing this crisis begins by talking about it. Join us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
09.15.2023 The Nuclear Option Fourteen years after receiving its permit, the nation’s first new nuclear reactors in decades just fired up in Georgia. Massive, traditional nuclear reactors like this have faced so many cost overruns and construction delays that the investment market for them ...
09.08.2023 Rethinking Economic Growth, Wealth, and Health Since the industrial revolution, the global north has seen massive economic growth. Yet that growth has been linked to increasing greenhouse gas emissions. We also live on a planet with finite resources, so it's hard to believe that we can ...
09.01.2023 Fairytales and Fear: Stories Of Our Future Stories are the way we remember, the way we share knowledge, the way we play out possible outcomes. Climate fiction imagines dark or bright futures depending on how we address the climate crisis. And there’s a healthy debate about what ...
08.25.2023 The Road to Zero Emissions Trucking As the build out of infrastructure for electric passenger vehicles gets underway, another segment of transportation is just starting down the road to electrification: heavy duty trucks. It’s one of the hard-to-decarbonize parts of our economy. Right now, nearly all ...
08.18.2023 Navigating Science and Feelings on a Destabilized Planet This year is shaping up to be the hottest year in 125,000 years. It may also be the coolest year a child born today will ever see. In “The Quickening,” science writer Elizabeth Rush documents her journey to Antarctica's infamous ...
08.11.2023 Just a Walk or Bike Ride Away: The 15-Minute City Can you imagine if everything you needed in your everyday life was just a walk or bike ride away? That’s the goal of the 15-minute City, a new name for an old idea. Reducing the need for cars cuts emissions ...
08.04.2023 Youth Activists 15 Years Later From the climate movement’s earliest days, young people have been at the forefront of activism. But the first major international climate conferences took place 30 years ago. The first cohort of youth activists are now adults, some with children of ...
07.28.2023 Building a Better Battery Supply Chain with JB Straubel and Aimee Boulanger Batteries are a critical part of the transition away from fossil fuels. From electric vehicles to grid scale storage for wind and solar, demand for batteries is expected to grow 500% by 2030. In order to meet that demand, we’re ...
07.21.2023 REWIND: Anand Giridharadas: Persuaders in a Hot and Polarized World In a democracy, meaningful change often requires adapting views and building coalitions. Some believe finding common ground and building rapport is the best way to change minds. Others believe activism and protests are key to raising awareness. Increasingly, however, the ...
07.14.2023 Green Energy / Red States Billions of dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act have started flowing into renewable energy projects and manufacturing. That’s bringing jobs and revenue back to the country and to some areas abandoned by the oil, coal and gas industries. Despite the ...
07.07.2023 Law and Oil: Taking Climate Offenders to Court The last several years have seen a big increase in the number of lawsuits focused on the climate crisis. Some lawsuits challenge governments for their support for fossil fuels and for their failure to take climate action, while other cases ...
06.30.2023 Peter Gleick on Water Poverty, Conflict, and a Hope for the Future No elemental force has done more to shape life on this planet than water, from originating the earliest forms of life, to sculpting our landscapes, to determining patterns of human civilization. Humans have tried to control water for thousands of ...
06.23.2023 Cory Booker: Taking on Big Ag & Going Big on Climate Our food and agricultural systems are helping fuel the climate emergency. But climate isn’t the only harm; these systems also impact local economies, human dignity, and animal welfare. The upcoming Farm Bill presents an opportunity to infuse more climate-smart practices ...
06.16.2023 REWIND: Saket Soni on the People Who Make Disaster Recovery Possible Who cleans up and rebuilds our communities after floods, fires, and hurricanes? COVID redefined America's definition of “essential workers,” but many who help communities recover from climate disasters remain underpaid and overlooked. In 2006, labor organizer Saket Soni got an ...
06.09.2023 Killer Heat: Confronting Disproportionate Impacts on Women and Girls Extreme heat kills more people per year than any other climate disaster. It preys on the poor, exacerbates racial inequalities, and there is a growing body of evidence that shows women and girls are increasingly susceptible to heat-health effects. Globally, ...
06.02.2023 Bringing Biodiversity Back from the Breaking Point Land use, pollution and the climate crisis are driving what may be the largest mass extinction event since the dinosaurs. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that the planet has seen an average 68% drop in mammal, bird, fish, reptile and ...
05.26.2023 Naomi Oreskes, David Gelles and The Myth of Free Markets Many on the left say that the growing climate crisis is the inevitable result of unbridled capitalism – industries seeking profits above all else. In “The Big Myth,” Naomi Oreskes (who brought us “Merchants of Doubt”) points to a concerted ...
05.19.2023 Two Heroes Challenging the Powerful Making the necessary changes to address climate disruption will take massive collective action. But sometimes, a single individual can make an extraordinary difference. At age nine, Nalleli Cobo, suffering headaches, heart palpitations, nosebleeds, and body spasms, became an activist, driven ...
05.12.2023 Amy Westervelt on Drilling, Denial and Disinformation Amy Westervelt has made a career out of exploring the underbelly of the oil industry through complex and compelling storytelling. Through her investigative series Drilled, including her latest season Light Sweet Crude, focused on the new wave of oil colonialism, ...
05.05.2023 Get Up, Stand Up: What Actions Move the Needle? From the Boston Tea Party to the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter, activists have long sought to bring pressing issues into the public consciousness. Climate activism is no different. This past Earth Day spawned a new ripple of ...
04.28.2023 Lights, Camera, Inaction: Where is Climate’s Starring Role? Hollywood has been slow to include climate in its stories. Executives fear it won’t sell – that it’s too overwhelming or depressing. Apple TV+ has just released the series Extrapolations, which revolves entirely around the climate crisis. But it’s an ...
04.21.2023 Missed Connections: Modernizing Our Multiple Grids Thousands of renewable energy projects are ready to be built and start producing fossil-free power, but they’re stuck in a long limbo for one essential piece of the puzzle: getting connected to the grid. A slow and inefficient federal permitting ...
04.14.2023 Bitcoin Uses a Ton of Energy – On Purpose. Is it Worth It? Studies estimate that global bitcoin mining uses more electricity than most countries, and that bitcoin mining may be responsible for about 65 megatons of carbon dioxide a year, comparable with the emissions of Greece. Some bitcoin operations are bringing old ...
04.07.2023 Two Voices on Climate That Will Surprise You It’s easy to write off people outside our own ideological bubbles, even when we may have many goals in common. But as the effects of the climate crisis become more apparent, we need leaders from all political and industrial perspectives ...
03.31.2023 White House Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi on Willow and Biden’s Climate Agenda Biden’s policy wins have secured vast amounts of funding for the energy transition, and that money is just beginning to flow, with new programs becoming available to everyday Americans. With hundreds of billions tagged for chip and battery plants, climate ...
03.24.2023 Yes, Happiness and Climate Action Can Go Together Our brains have evolved over millions of years to deal with immediate and direct challenges, but they’re not so great at processing large existential threats, like the climate crisis. Understanding why people behave the way they do could be a ...
03.17.2023 A Global Just Transition – For Whom? According to the United Nations Development Program, 54 countries, accounting for half the world’s population, face such critical debt burdens that they simply cannot finance climate adaptation and mitigation on their own. Most of these same countries are in the ...
03.10.2023 Stop, Listen, What’s that Sound? Every place we inhabit has its own tapestry of sound, whether you’re hiking through the woods or sitting in a cafe with a friend. And not only are sounds a part of our sensory experience, but they can give us ...
03.03.2023 Has Hydrogen’s Moment Finally Arrived? Not long ago, it was said that “hydrogen is the fuel of the future - and always will be.” Now, with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law tagging $9.5 billion for developing a domestic hydrogen economy, this simplest of all elements is ...
02.24.2023 Housing Density as a Climate Lever with Scott Wiener The lack of affordable housing in the U.S. has contributed to a homelessness crisis and has forced people to move farther away from urban centers. Inevitably, that increases car travel and emissions. One solution is to increase density in areas ...
02.17.2023 Climate Smart Agriculture with Secretary Tom Vilsack Agriculture is responsible for around 11% of U.S. carbon emissions. And yet soil holds the potential for massive carbon sequestration. Conventional agriculture focuses more on crop productivity than soil health, relying on pesticides, fertilizer, and other practices that contribute to ...
02.10.2023 What We’re Watching in Climate Now 2022 was a banner year for climate – both in terms of climate-fueled disaster and historic federal investments in clean energy, electric vehicles and home electrification. The questions now: How will the programs be implemented ? How will the money ...
02.03.2023 Saket Soni on the People Who Make Disaster Recovery Possible Who cleans up and rebuilds our communities after floods, fires, and hurricanes? COVID redefined America's definition of “essential workers,” but many who help communities recover from climate disasters remain underpaid and overlooked. In 2006, labor organizer Saket Soni got an ...
01.27.2023 Blue Carbon: Sinking it in The Sea When most of us think about using nature to remove carbon dioxide from the air, we think of trees. Yet blue carbon, a new name for storing carbon dioxide in coastal and marine ecosystems where it can no longer trap ...
01.20.2023 Activism, Art and Environmental Justice Art can inspire community and conversation, provide fresh insights into understanding history, and cultivate connection. It can challenge your worldview and shift perspectives. This week we discuss how art and activism can work together to elevate some of the vast ...
01.13.2023 REWIND: Coping with Climate through Music Music and social movements have historically gone hand in hand. Folk music played a unifying role for the labor movements in the United States. Music was central to the protests against the Vietnam War and in favor of Civil Rights. ...
01.06.2023 REWIND: Molly Wood on Tech, Money and Survival After a 20-year career as a tech reporter for CNET, the New York Times, and the public radio program Marketplace, Molly Wood has come to see the climate crisis as an engineering problem requiring an acceleration of investment. And so, ...
12.30.2022 Revisiting The Enablers: The Firms Behind Fossil Fuel Falsehoods For years, fossil fuel companies have claimed to support climate science and policy. Many have recently pledged to hit net zero emissions by midcentury. Yet behind the scenes, they fight those very same policies through industry associations, shadow groups, and ...
12.23.2022 This Year in Climate Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves through global energy markets, destabilized international food security, and continues to keep the world wondering whether the war will accelerate the transition to clean energy or lead to renewed dependence on fossil fuels. ...
12.16.2022 Stefan Rahmstorf: 2022 Schneider Award Winner Every year, Climate One grants an award in memory of pioneering climate scientist Steve Schneider, who fiercely took on the denial machine from the 1970s until his death in 2010. This year's recipient is German physicist and ocean expert Dr. ...
12.09.2022 Green Buildings: Cooking Without Gas It’s become common for homeowners to install solar panels to provide themselves with emission-free electricity. But increasingly more attention is being paid to decarbonizing things inside the home – the machines that heat and cool water and air, dry our ...
12.02.2022 What’s in My Air? Over a 20-year period, methane is 80 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Yet those responsible for releasing methane into the atmosphere often don’t even know how much they themselves are emitting. And methane is only one ...
11.25.2022 Yvon Chouinard: Giving It All Away Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard made headlines recently when he announced that he and his family had transferred their $3 billion stake in the storied outdoor gear company to a special purpose trust and nonprofit that would give away $100 million ...
11.18.2022 In Person at COP27: Funding the Global Energy Transition Climate One has been at this year's UN climate summit, COP27, where one of the issues at the forefront of the conversation has been “loss and damage” – the idea that rich countries who have historically emitted the vast majority ...
11.11.2022 On the Ground at COP27: Tallying Payments and Progress The 27th UN convention on climate change, known as COP27, is now underway in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. When Climate One spoke with Egyptian Ambassador Wael Aboulmagd in October, he argued that progress at this year’s summit would be more ...
11.04.2022 Kamala Harris and Gina McCarthy: Views From The Inside It’s been a big year for U.S. climate policy. Three major pieces of legislation: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act have all become law, ushering in the largest commitment of federal money ...
10.28.2022 Anand Giridharadas: Persuaders in a Hot and Polarized World In a democracy, meaningful change often requires adapting views and building coalitions. Some believe finding common ground and building rapport is the best way to change minds. Others believe activism and protests are key to raising awareness. Increasingly, however, the ...
10.21.2022 Two Hemispheres, One Story: Reporting on Rising Seas Twenty of the world’s richest countries – mostly in the Global North – are responsible for 80 percent of the carbon pollution that’s driving extreme weather and supercharging natural disasters. Yet poorer countries in the Global South are experiencing climate-induced ...

Older episodes

Climate One

What's Climate One about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Climate One episodes:

Naomi Klein and Carolyn Beeler: Covering Big Ideas and Personal Stories

Official Trailer: Climate One

The Nuclear Option

Rethinking Economic Growth, Wealth, and Health

Fairytales and Fear: Stories Of Our Future

The Road to Zero Emissions Trucking

Navigating Science and Feelings on a Destabilized Planet

Just a Walk or Bike Ride Away: The 15-Minute City

Youth Activists 15 Years Later

Building a Better Battery Supply Chain with JB Straubel and Aimee Boulanger

REWIND: Anand Giridharadas: Persuaders in a Hot and Polarized World

Green Energy / Red States

Law and Oil: Taking Climate Offenders to Court

Peter Gleick on Water Poverty, Conflict, and a Hope for the Future

Cory Booker: Taking on Big Ag & Going Big on Climate

REWIND: Saket Soni on the People Who Make Disaster Recovery Possible

Killer Heat: Confronting Disproportionate Impacts on Women and Girls

Bringing Biodiversity Back from the Breaking Point

Naomi Oreskes, David Gelles and The Myth of Free Markets

Two Heroes Challenging the Powerful

Amy Westervelt on Drilling, Denial and Disinformation

Get Up, Stand Up: What Actions Move the Needle?

Lights, Camera, Inaction: Where is Climate’s Starring Role?

Missed Connections: Modernizing Our Multiple Grids

Bitcoin Uses a Ton of Energy – On Purpose. Is it Worth It?

Two Voices on Climate That Will Surprise You

White House Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi on Willow and Biden’s Climate Agenda

Yes, Happiness and Climate Action Can Go Together

A Global Just Transition – For Whom?

Stop, Listen, What’s that Sound?

Has Hydrogen’s Moment Finally Arrived?

Housing Density as a Climate Lever with Scott Wiener

Climate Smart Agriculture with Secretary Tom Vilsack

What We’re Watching in Climate Now

Saket Soni on the People Who Make Disaster Recovery Possible

Blue Carbon: Sinking it in The Sea

Activism, Art and Environmental Justice

REWIND: Coping with Climate through Music

REWIND: Molly Wood on Tech, Money and Survival

Revisiting The Enablers: The Firms Behind Fossil Fuel Falsehoods

This Year in Climate

Stefan Rahmstorf: 2022 Schneider Award Winner

Green Buildings: Cooking Without Gas

What’s in My Air?

Yvon Chouinard: Giving It All Away

In Person at COP27: Funding the Global Energy Transition

On the Ground at COP27: Tallying Payments and Progress

Kamala Harris and Gina McCarthy: Views From The Inside

Anand Giridharadas: Persuaders in a Hot and Polarized World

Two Hemispheres, One Story: Reporting on Rising Seas