Recorded December 11 from Union Glacier Camp in Antarctica, this episode explores one of the biggest, and least discussed, climate challenges: heating and cooling the world's buildings. This source emits an estimated 15% or more of global greenhouse gas emissions, including the impact of leaked refrigerant gases, which have much higher Global Warming Potential than C02. And the problem is accelerating fast: The world is expected to grow from about 2 billion air-conditioning systems today to more than 5 billion within the next decade.

For this episode, Robert Swan and Exergyn engineer Richard Blackburn were in Antarctica, while co-host Dan Smith was in North Texas as usual. Their conversation traces the story from the ozone crisis and the Montreal Protocol in the 1980s to the more recent Kigali Amendment and Exergyn’s new solid-state cooling technologies that could eliminate the need for climate-damaging refrigerant gases altogether.

This is the sixth and final episode of the 2025 season, and it’s been a soft launch as Thin Ice finds its path. Our purpose, though, is clear: to help preserve Antarctica as a reserve land for science and peace, and to show that protecting wild places begins with building a more sustainable world.

Solutions are out there, friends. Let's get together and get this snowball rolling!