Data Dialogues

In this bonus episode for Season 3, Madhuri Karak speaks with Michelle Thorne (Green Web Foundation) and Shannon Dosemagen (Open Environmental Data Project), two co-founders of Open Climate. Together, they delve into curated collision, a knowledge commons for climate information, and the importance of open for climate action.

In this episode, we look into the painstaking compilation of data previously inaccessible and scattered between different government agencies, that is finally shedding light on an extractive industry with massive environmental climate and livelihood consequences: sand mining. In this episode, Madhuri Karak speaks with Siddharth Agarwal about India Sand Watch, an environmental accountability project with an open data platform at its heart.

We need to burn fewer and fewer fossil fuels to keep greenhouse gas emissions low and ensure the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold isn't breached. But can we manage and reduce something that we didn't measure accurately in the first place? National governments signed the Paris agreement to limit global warming and cut emissions, but the data on fossil fuels—how much there is, how much was burned, and how much of it is in reserve—all of that information comes from... fossil fuel companies. In this episode, Madhuri Karak speaks with Johnny West, an architect of the Global Registry of Fossil Fuels, who is trying to change that.

Los datos son una pieza clave para que las comunidades puedan reclamar sus derechos y recursos, y la ausencia de datos puede dificultar ese proceso. En este episodio, la presentadora Madhuri Karak habla con José Luis Rengifo, director del Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN) y Omaira Bolaños, directora de los Programas de América Latina y Justicia de Género de la Iniciativa de Derechos y Recursos (RRI). José Luis y Omaira son dos representantes de una coalición que lleva décadas trabajando en pos de los derechos territoriales de las comunidades afrodescendientes en el Caribe y América Latina.

Data is a key piece of how communities make claims on rights and resources—and the absence of data can make that claims making process difficult. In this episode, host Madhuri Karak speaks with Jose Luis Rengifo, the director of the Process of Black Communities (PCN) and Omaira Bolaños, the director of the Latin America and Gender Justice Programs at Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). Jose Luis and Omaira are two representatives of a decades-long coalition effort seeking territorial rights for Afro-descendant communities across the Caribbean and Latin America.

What does it mean to take back knowledge and data about our environments, from the hands of those who monopolize this knowledge for centuries, and use that knowledge to extract value from land and people alike? In this episode, Madhuri Karak speaks with Scott Eustis, the community science director at Healthy Gulf, about what taking back ownership of knowledge and data about our landscapes, our bodies, looks like in the Gulf Coast of the US.

Climate information exists in a lot of different formats: there are reports, datasets, peer reviewed research articles, blogs, videos, and more. If we're going to have a real shot at tackling the climate crisis, then the knowledge we've produced about climate change needs to be open—but how do we give permission while protecting creators from harm?. In this episode, Madhuri Karak speaks with Monica Granados, who leads the Open Climate campaign at Creative Commons, about the role of licenses in building climate resilience.

The latest UN IPCC report (AR6) runs... 30,000 pages. For those of us who don't have the time to read this in full, how do we incorporate the golden standard of climate science into our own work? In this episode, Madhuri speaks with Shweata Hegde, a developer at #semanticClimate, who is building a tool that will break AR6 down and turn it into an accessible resource.

When we first start learning about something, Wikipedia is often our first stop. But where does Wikipedia fit in when it comes to climate change - a complex, multi-dimensional, and urgent topic like no other? In this episode, Madhuri speaks with Evelin Heidel, the Program Director of Wikimedistas de Uruguay about how Wikipedia lays the groundwork for our understanding of climate change.