Climate One

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 anonymous call from an Indian migrant worker in Mississippi who had scraped together $20,000 to apply for the “opportunity” to rebuild oil rigs after Hurricane Katrina. The caller was only one of hundreds lured into Gulf Coast labor camps, surrounded by barbed wire, and watched by armed guards. Since then, the frequency and intensity of climate-related disasters has only increased – and disaster recovery has become big business. How are the lives of people displaced by disasters intertwined with those helping to rebuild?

Guests:

Saket Soni, Founder and Director, Resilience Force

Daniel Castellanos, Director Of Workforce Engagement, Resilience Force

For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts

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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 heat in our atmosphere, may have even greater potential. Salt marshes and mangroves have carbon-capturing capacity that may surpass that of terrestrial forests. Seagrasses, for example, currently cover less than 0.2% of the ocean floor, but store about 10% of the carbon buried in the oceans each year.

How can natural, ocean-based solutions benefit both the planet and the people who live in and depend on coastal ecosystems? 

Guests: 

Ralph Chami, Assistant Director, Western Hemisphere Division, Institute for Capacity Development, IMF

Emily Pidgeon, Vice President, Ocean Science And Innovation, Conservation International

Irina Fedorenko-Aula, Founder, Co-CEO, Vlinder

Isabella Masinde, CEO, Umita

For show notes and related links, visit our website.

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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 inequities that exist between those who benefit from fossil fuel energy and resource extraction and those who suffer its impacts.

Guests:

Ladonna Williams, Program Director, All Positives Possible

Doug Harris, documentary filmmaker

Christine Abadilla Fogarty, Associate Director, Global Museum at San Francisco State University

Sofía Córdova, multimedia artist and musician

For show notes and related links, visit our website.

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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. As more people become aware of the climate crisis, music is starting to reflect that.

But there is still no one song or artist inspiring climate action the way music catalyzed other movements. Why aren’t more musical artists raising the alarm over the growing climate catastrophe? And for the artists who are, how do they express the anxiety and grief that they and their listeners are experiencing? 

Guests:

Tamara Lindeman, Musician, The Weather Station

Jayson Greene, Contributing Editor, Pitchfork

For show notes and related links, visit our website.

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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, after producing the acclaimed climate podcast “How We Survive” for Marketplace, she left that program to begin a new career in venture capital. What are the limits of media in changing human behavior? And what is the role of capital in addressing the climate crisis, even while considering that capitalism itself may be incompatible with survival? 

Guests:

Molly Wood, Climate Solutions Investor, Podcaster

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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 lobbying – all while spending vast sums on advertising and PR campaigns touting their climate commitments. This week we focus on the PR and consultancy firms helping fossil fuel companies delay the transition to clean energy while claiming they are on the side of climate protection.

Guests: 

Michael Forsythe, Reporter, New York Times

Dr. Benjamin Franta, Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Climate Litigation Lab, Oxford Sustainable Law Programme.

Jamie Henn, Founder and Director, Fossil Free Media

Christine Arena, former Executive Vice President, Edelman; Founder, Generous Films

For show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org.

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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. Climate One hosts Greg Dalton and Ariana Brocious review the top climate stories of the year, from the war’s global impacts, to the passage and signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, to the recent international climate summit in Egypt. This special episode features excerpts from some of Climate One’s most profound interviews of 2022, including conversations with such luminaries as Jamie Raskin, Wanjira Mathai, and Anand Giridharadas.

Guests:

Roman Zinchenko, Co-founder, Greencubator

Amy Myers Jaffe, Director of NYU’s Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab

Gina McCarthy, Former White House Climate Advisor, Former EPA Administrator 

Jamie Raskin, U.S. Representative, Maryland’s 8th Congressional District 

Anand Giridharadas, Author, The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy 

Chloe Maxmin, Maine State Senator

Wanjira Mathai, Vice President and Regional Director for Africa, World Resources Institute 

David Munene, Programs Manager, Catholic Youth Network for Environmental Sustainability in Africa 

Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson, Reporter, The Guardian; Host of An Impossible Choice podcast 

David Wallace-Wells, Columnist, New York Times Magazine; Author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming 

Gavin McCormick, Co-founder, Climate TRACE

For show notes and related links, visit www.climateone.org

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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. Stefan Rahmstorf. Dr. Rahmstorf says we’re running toward a cliff in a fog. What can science tell us where that cliff is – and how to avoid it? 

In a time of oceanic changes happening at an unprecedented pace, Dr. Rahmstorf exemplifies the rare combination of superb scientist and powerful communicator. He works to convey the impact of climate disruption on ocean currents, sea level rise, and increasing extreme weather events fueled by warmer oceans. 

We also talk with past Schneider Award winner Ayana Elizabeth Johnson about the need for broader inclusion among climate leaders. What can the study of past ice ages tell us about our climate future? And what should be the role of scientists in the public sphere?

Guests: 

Stefan Rahmstorf, Co-Head of Research, Department on Earth System Analysis of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK); Professor of Physics of the Oceans, University of Potsdam

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, marine biologist, writer

For show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org

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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 clothes and cook our food. The Inflation Reduction Act includes many ways for homeowners and renters to start to electrify their lives. And in some places, builders are developing highly efficient, all electric homes from the get-go. What more is needed to make our buildings greener and get away from fossil fuels?

Guests:

Mark Chambers, Sr. Director Building Emissions & Community Resilience, White House Council on Environmental Quality

Bruce Nilles, Executive Director, Climate Imperative

Contributing Producer: Cody Short, WBHM

For show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org

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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 of many harmful air pollutants that result from our dependence on burning fossil fuels. 

Now, research coalitions, citizen scientists and activists are using a slate of new tools to detect and report emissions. They’re also using many of the same tools to shine a light on exactly how and where other deadly fossil fuel pollutants, like nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter, are affecting community health. Such data could become a critical tool for regulation, leading to greater emissions reductions.  

Guests:

Davida Herzl, Co-founder and CEO, Aclima

Kendra Pinto, Four Corners Indigenous Community Field Advocate, Earthworks 

Gavin McCormick, Co-founder, Climate TRACE

For show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org

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