How to Save a Planet

By GimletSociety & Culture News Science

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How to Save a Planet episodes

August 04, 2022 Presenting: The Journal - Shein Took Over Fast Fashion. Then Came the Backlash.
WSJ’s Fashion Director Rory Satran explains how Shein-- now valued at $100 billion-- rose to dominate the fast-fashion industry via social media, and why it's now facing intense criticism from sustainable shoppers.
To learn more about the climate impacts of fast fashion and ways to mitigate them, be sure to check out our episode Fast Fashion’s Dirty Little Secret (Hint: It’s Oil).
Check out our Calls to Action archive for all of the actions we've recommended on the show. Send us your ideas or feedback with our Listener Mail Form. Sign up for our newsletter here. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

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25 min
July 28, 2022What's the Most Climate-Friendly Way to Use My Land? A HTSAP House Call
A listener called in with a dilemma: What's the most climate-friendly thing she can do with her family farm? Her family owns 126 acres of land in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, which she’s going to inherit one day. And she wondered…should I put up solar panels? Try climate-smart ag? Plant trees? So we flew out to investigate, and found people doing some amazing work – from a regenerative bee ranch to reforesting 400 acres of farmland. Tag along on the very first How to Save a Planet House Call.
Guests: John Herman from Lazy Z Ranch, Claire Fox from Greenbelt Land Trust, Paul West from Project Drawdown
Calls to Action
If you want to learn more about regenerative agriculture, check out the Soil Health Institute, this blog post from the World Resources Institute, and our episode Soil: The Dirty Climate Solution
The Farm Bill (the big bill that lays out agricultural subsidies in the US) is up for a new version in 2023. If you think the US should offer more incentives to encourage regenerative agriculture, reach out to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees and let them know!
If you’re interested in conservation, get to know your local land trust, watershed council, or other conservation organizations and find a way to get involved! They likely have volunteer opportunities, educational programming, activities like tours and hikes, and exciting conservation projects that need your help.

Check out our Calls to Action archive for all of the actions we've recommended on the show. Send us your ideas or feedback with our Listener Mail Form. Sign up for our newsletter here. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
This episode of How to Save a Planet was produced by Anna Ladd and Rachel Waldholz. The rest of our reporting and producing team includes Kendra Pierre-Louis and Daniel Ackerman. Our supervising producer is Matt Shilts. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney. Our intern is Janae Morris. Sound design and mixing by Peter Leonard with original music from Emma Munger. Our fact checker for this episode was Claudia Geib. Special thanks to Laurie Hutchinson.

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45 min
July 21, 2022 Presenting: Science Vs - A Mystery in the Air
This week we’re sharing an episode from another Gimlet podcast called Science Vs. When a little girl, Ella Kissi-Debrah, suddenly got sick and landed in the hospital, doctors were stumped. In this episode, her mom, Rosamund, takes on the fight to find out what exactly happened to Ella. And the answer has BIG implications — for us all. We’ll hear from Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah and Professor Stephen Holgate.

Check out GreenRoots to learn more about fighting for clean air.
Check the air quality where you live.

Check out our Calls to Action archive for all of the actions we've recommended on the show. Send us your ideas or feedback with our Listener Mail Form. Sign up for our newsletter here. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

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40 min
July 14, 2022Are My Retirement Savings Invested in Fossil Fuels?? Help!
Look inside your retirement savings and you may find some surprises: oil and gas companies, pipeline operators, utilities with coal-fired power plants. It can feel like no matter what you’re doing to combat climate change in your daily life, your money is working against you. So how do you invest without wrecking the planet? Is there such a thing as green investing? And why isn’t this easier to figure out? This week we ask: What does it mean to try to put your money where your values are?
Calls to Action
First, if you do have a retirement account — find out what you’re invested in! You can go to FossilFreeFunds.org and plug in the names of the funds in your portfolio. They’ll give you a breakdown of the fossil fuel exposure you have right now.

Then: Demand better! If you want to go fossil fuel free and you have a retirement account at work that doesn’t offer good options, tell your HR department that you want climate-friendly or fossil fuel free funds added to your retirement plan. The shareholder advocacy group As You Sow put together a 401(k) Toolkit with advice for getting fossil fuel free options added to your retirement plan, and Green Century also created a handy guide.

You can do the same if you have an individual retirement account. Tell your asset manager you want high-quality fossil fuel free investing options. The more they hear from their customers, the more seriously they take these things!

If you take an action we recommend in one of our episodes, do us a favor and tell us about it! We’d love to hear how it went. Record a short voice memo on your phone and send it to us via our Listener Mail Form. We might use it in an upcoming episode. You can find all the actions we’ve recommended on our show here!

This episode of How to Save a Planet was produced by Rachel Waldholz. The rest of our reporting and producing team includes Kendra Pierre-Louis, Anna Ladd, and Daniel Ackerman. Our supervising producer is Matt Shilts. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney. Our intern is Janae Morris. Sound design and mixing by Peter Leonard with original music from Emma Munger and Peter Leonard. Our fact checker for this episode was Claudia Geib.

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52 min
July 07, 2022Air Conditioned Stadiums. Cruise Ships. New Hotels. Can the World Cup in Qatar Really Be Carbon Neutral?
More than a million soccer fans will travel to Qatar this fall for one of the biggest sporting events on Earth: The FIFA World Cup. The event sounds like it will be a climate nightmare, thanks to all the flights, air conditioned outdoor fields, docked cruise ships and brand new stadiums. But despite all this – the organizers claim this month-long event will be carbon neutral. How can they say that? Thanks to carbon offset credits. On this episode we dive deep into the murky world of carbon offset credits to find out how they work, who makes the rules and what all this means for the World Cup.

Guests
Suzi Kerr, Chief Economist, Environmental Defense Fund
Danny Cullenward, Policy Director, (carbon)plan
Derik Broekhoff, Senior Scientist, Stockholm Environment Institute
Calls to Action
Check out the Carbon Credit Quality Initiative’s handy guide to carbon offsets
Curious about the carbon offsets offered by airlines these days? Find out more about where that money is actually going with these guides from Business Traveller and The Points Guy.

Check out our Calls to Action archive for all of the actions we've recommended on the show. Send us your ideas or feedback with our Listener Mail Form. Sign up for our newsletter here. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

This episode of How to Save a Planet was produced by Lonnie Ro. The rest of our reporting and producing team includes Kendra Pierre-Louis, Rachel Waldholz, Anna Ladd, and Daniel Ackerman. Our supervising producer is Lauren Silverman. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney. Our intern is Janae Morris. Sound design and mixing by Peter Leonard with original music from Emma Munger. Our fact checker for this episode was Claudia Geib.

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44 min
June 30, 2022Spark Tank! How Do We Solve the Energy Storage Problem?
Storage!
...Exciting, right? Ok, we’ll prove it to you. Each day, more and more of our electricity comes from intermittent renewables like wind and solar. To balance out our electric grid in the future, we’ll need new ways of storing extra energy, so we can still turn on our lights when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. This week, with help from Dr. Leah Stokes and Shayle Kann, we explore the wild world of energy storage, from a hidden underground lair to a piping hot thermos full of poison. And did we mention it’s a gameshow?

Guests
Dr. Leah Stokes, Professor of Climate and Energy Policy at University of California, Santa Barbara
Shayle Kann, Climate Tech Investor at Energy Impact Partners
Len Greene, Director of Government Affairs and Communications, FirstLight Power
Curtis VanWalleghem, CEO of Hydrostor
Dr. Cristina Prieto, Professor of Engineering at the University of Seville
Calls to Action
Learn more about energy storage
Pumped Hydro
Compressed Air
Molten Salts
And for a really wild one: check out Energy Vault
Learn more about our electric grid, with our episodes How We Got our Grid and How We Get a Better One and Party Like It’s 2035
We still want to see your climate Venn diagrams! For inspiration, check out ClimateVenn.info. Post your diagram to Instagram and tag us at @how2saveaplanet. We’ll be reposting examples listeners share with us!

Check out our Calls to Action archive for all of the actions we've recommended on the show. Send us your ideas or feedback with our Listener Mail Form. Sign up for our newsletter here. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

This episode of How to Save a Planet was produced by Daniel Ackerman. The rest of our reporting and producing team includes Kendra Pierre-Louis, Rachel Waldholz and Anna Ladd. Our supervising producer is Matthew Shilts. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney. Our intern is Janae Morris. Sound design and mixing by Peter Leonard with original music from Emma Munger. Our fact checker for this episode was James Gaines.

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46 min
June 23, 2022Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Helps You Find Your Climate Superpower
It’s a question we get all the time: “What can I do to address the climate crisis?” This week, our one and only original co-host, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, pays us a visit and offers her advice on how to find your place in the climate movement. We’re sharing her TED Talk, “How to find joy in climate action,” given this spring at TED2022 in Vancouver. Plus, Alex and Ayana catch up, and we hear all about what Ayana has been up to since she left the show. Hint: She did always say policy is her love language!
Guest: Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Calls to Action:
Make your own climate action Venn diagram! Trying to figure out what you can do to address climate change? Ask yourself: What are you good at? What is the work that needs doing? And what brings you joy? “This is an invitation,” Ayana says. “Find your role, if you haven't already… Averting climate catastrophe: this is the work of our lifetimes.”
Need inspiration? Check out climatevenn.info for simple instructions, a template, and examples of climate action Venn diagrams other people have made.
When you’re done – tell us about it! Post your Venn diagram to Instagram and tag Ayana at @ClimateVenn – plus tag us at @how2saveaplanet. We’ll be reposting examples listeners share with us!
Have you used a climate action Venn diagram to inspire your own climate work? Tell us about it! Send us a voice memo via our Listener Mail Form. We might use it in a future episode!
Further Reading / Watching / Listening:
You can watch Ayana’s full TED Talk here.
To hear the origins of the climate action Venn diagram, listen back to our episode, Is Your Carbon Footprint BS?
For more info on the policy efforts Ayana talked about in the episode, check out the Urban Ocean Lab and Ocean Justice Forum
You can find more info on Ayana’s collaboration with artists to explore climate futurism via the Headlands Center for the Arts
For more climate-related TED Talks, check out TED Countdown. To hear the rest of the talks from the TED2022 conference, follow TED Talks Daily.

Check out our Calls to Action archive for all of the actions we've recommended on the show. Send us your ideas or feedback with our Listener Mail Form. Sign up for our newsletter here. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
This episode of How to Save a Planet was produced by Rachel Waldholz. The rest of our reporting and producing team includes Kendra Pierre-Louis, Anna Ladd, and Daniel Ackerman. Our supervising producer is Matt Shilts. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney. Our intern is Janae Morris. Sound design and mixing by Peter Leonard with original music from Peter Leonard and Emma Munger.
Special thanks to TED2022 for sharing this talk with us!

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31 min
June 16, 2022 Presenting: Hot Farm – Grain of the Future
This week we’re sharing an episode from a new podcast called Hot Farm. It’s from our friends at the Food & Environment Reporting Network. The podcast is about what farmers are doing – or could be doing – to take on climate change. In this episode, we’ll hear about the crops farmers actually grow. And we’ll explore the question, Can that change? Because as the world gets hotter and the weather more extreme, we’ll have to reimagine what we sow and harvest — and also what we eat. It won’t be easy.

Check out the rest of the series on Spotify or thefern.org.

Check out our Calls to Action archive for all of the actions we've recommended on the show. Send us your ideas or feedback with our Listener Mail Form. Sign up for our newsletter here. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
36 min
June 09, 2022Meet The Influencer Who Wants You To Buy LESS Stuff
In our episode Fast Fashion’s Dirty Little Secret (Hint: It’s Oil), we made the call to action: buy less clothing, and keep your clothing for longer. Some of you may have heard that and thought – “yeah, sure.” It sounds great, but it’s really hard to do, given the ecosystem of desire creation that is social media. How can you buy less when your feed is encouraging you to buy more, more, more? To find out, we talk to beauty influencer Hannah Louise Poston about how social media sucked her into overspending, what it was like to spend a year buying nothing at all, and how she makes beauty content that doesn’t suck people in too.
Guest: Hannah Louise Poston
Calls to action
You’ve heard this one here before: shop less, and keep the things you have for longer. Here are Hannah’s tips for giving that a try:
If you see something you want to buy, wait. Put it on a wishlist and revisit it later. Some desires may fade slower than others, but she found during her no-buy year that almost all of those desires faded eventually.
Before you buy something, think about what it will look like in 6 months. What will an article of clothing look like after it's been washed 10 times? What will a lipstick look like when it’s covered in bronzer dust at the bottom of your bag?
Revel in what you already have. If you want to buy clothes, dress up in something you already own and love. If you want to buy makeup, play with your own collection. Chances are, you already have something similar, or can have a similar experience to buying something new.

Hannah’s video goes into detail about these strategies.
Check out our Calls to Action archive for all of the actions we've recommended on the show. Send us your ideas or feedback with our Listener Mail Form. Sign up for our newsletter here. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
This episode of How to Save a Planet was produced by Anna Ladd. The rest of our reporting and producing team includes Kendra Pierre-Louis, Rachel Waldholz, and Daniel Ackerman. Our supervising producer is Matt Shilts. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney. Our intern is Janae Morris. Sound design and mixing by Bobby Lord and Enoch Kim with original music by Peter Leonard, Emma Munger, Bobby Lord, Catherine Anderson, and Billy Libby.. Our fact checker for this episode was Claudia Geib.

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34 min
June 02, 2022When ‘Electrify Everything’ Means Quitting Your Desk Job and Getting Your Hands Dirty
Nate Johnson didn’t plan to switch careers. But since he did he’s gone from just writing about the energy transition, to actually making it happen. In this episode, find out what it’s like to become an electrician — and the challenges that could be holding back the decarbonization of our grid. And hear from one company, Solar Holler, that came up with a surprising solution to the issues they were facing.

Guests:
Nate Johnson, Trainee Electrician
Dan Conant, CEO of Solar Holler

Calls to Action:
Become an electrician! Here's where to start:
National Electrical Contractors Association
Electrical Training Alliance
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Electrical School Apprenticeships
Already an electrician? Become Nate’s instructor at the Peralta Community Colleges. Here’s where to apply:
https://peraltaccd.peopleadmin.com/postings/5588
https://peraltaccd.peopleadmin.com/postings/5974

Check out our Calls to Action archive for all of the actions we've recommended on the show. Send us your ideas or feedback with our Listener Mail Form. Sign up for our newsletter here. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

This episode of How to Save a Planet was produced by Meg Driscoll. The rest of our reporting and producing team includes Kendra Pierre-Louis, Anna Ladd and Daniel Ackerman. Our supervising producer is Matthew Shilts. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney. Our intern is Janae Morris. Sound design and mixing by Peter Leonard with original music from Emma Munger. Our fact checker for this episode was Stephanie Abramson.

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27 min

About How to Save a Planet

From the publisher's feed

Climate change. We know. It can feel too overwhelming. But what if there was a show about climate change that left you feeling... energized? One so filled with possibility that you actually wanted to listen? Join us, journalist Alex Blumberg and a crew of climate nerds, as we bring you smart, inspiring stories about the mess we're in and how we can get ourselves out of it.