Sweatpants with Rollie Williams

To round out this season of Sweatpants we’ve got the incredibly talented Adam Met from the band AJR on the program. After Rollie peppers Adam with questions about what it was like to play the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, they get into unimpressible fathers, climate policy, being careful in public, and getting called Doctor. Oh yeah, did I mention that? Adam literally just successfully defended his dissertation and is now Dr. Adam. All this and more in on the season finalé of Sweatpants.

This episode of Sweatpants features such a rock solid guest that it came dangerously close to becoming too high-key. Luckily for us, Dr. Alicia Pérez-Porro was able to thread the needle and save the episode. Join us as we talk about COP26, why greenwashing is maybe okay sometimes, and real estate in Barcelona.

A low-key climate podcast could never be complete without having Sasha Stewart as a guest. Sasha has worked on everything from The Colbert Report to The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore to Amend: The Fight For America, and if an episode ever had a segment about climate change, she probably had a hand in it. 

Sasha and Rollie get into environmental stereotypes in fiction, why so many writers don't seem to create a lot of climate comedy, and what a buddy comedy starring two people with the last name of 'Hall' might be called. It's low key? It's about climate? That's both boxes checked. Enjoy.  

Never has a guest on Sweatpants understood the concept of a low-key climate podcast faster than Dr. Shannon Odell (Drunk Science, Fun City, Your Brain On Blank). Despite having a PhD in Neuroscience, Shannon is also a working comedian in New York City, and you better believe they get into it on the podcast. Shannon and Rollie try to get into brains of climate deniers as well as people suffering from climate grief, but they do it in a really low-key way so they don't violate the sacred tenet of the podcast.

Put your kids on silent and throw your friends in a volcano because you don't want to miss a second of this episode featuring Dr. Geoffrey Supran (Harvard, MIT, Climate Social Science Network). Actually, you know what, I think I came in a little too hot with that intro. And a lot of you don't even have kids or access to a volcano. You know what, I'll just say Dr. Supran is one of the most interesting people I've ever met and he pivoted from being a top tier physicist to becoming a climate activist after a stunning series of revelations. Intrigued much? Oh yeah you are. Give it a listen. Or don't! I'm not your parents.

Link to the paper we're talking about in the episode: https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(21)00233-5

Link to another paper: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/20/big-oil-congress-climate-change 

If you're looking for a relaxing trip to podcast city, you've come to the right place. Today's guest is the creator and writer of the Heated Newsletter, Emily Atkin, and she's got some insane stories to tell. Honestly, there are some pretty high key moments, so if you're allergic to excitement, get lost. Emily and Rollie talk about the ill-fated climate debate, Emily's life as a reporter, and there may even be a secret post-credits scene if you stick around long enough.

You are in luck, because this episode stars climate science powerhouse Dr. Kate Marvel (NASA, Columbia University, Scientific American). She also happens to have been Rollie’s atmospheric science professor in grad school, so they’ve got plenty to talk about. Dr. Marvel discusses her current research, her thoughts on the future, and the landline telephone in her apartment that she doesn’t know the number to. It’s a real wild ride stem to stern, but not in a high-key way. More like a lazy river but with controlled explosions. Check it out. Also, at one point we talk about space ghost coast to coast and I said I would link the episode in the show notes, but I couldn’t find it. I guess it’s lost to history.

Rollie strikes gold in the third installment of Sweatpants by bringing on climate comedian Chuck Nice (StarTalk, Comedy Central, Brain Games). They talk about their respective paths around comedy and climate communication, as well as general theories on how people become radicalized. It's fun and lively and low-key, so if you want to hear some of that, this might just be the episode for you.

The concept of a low-key podcast is strained when Rollie gets on the phone with Dr. Gavin Schmidt, NASA’s Senior Climate Advisor to the President. Luckily, Gavin was calling in from an active turkey farm which helped restore the podcast to a calming center. They talk about what an average day is like, the general state of NASA’s climate department, the difficulties of juggling, and more. Throughout the episode, Dr. Gavin Schmidt sticks the landing on so many perfect metaphors it almost feels scripted, but if this episode was scripted, don’t you think Rollie would have had better jokes? Please enjoy this Sweatpants episode unless you need something high key in which case, keep on walking.

In this unbelievably low-key episode, Rollie cracks open a cold one with writer/performer Nicole Conlan (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) and climate journalist Brian Kahn (Earther, Columbia). They have an absolutely liquid smooth conversation about climate messaging including seamless transitions, a secret Stephen Colbert formula for writing comedy about difficult subjects, and several first and last names of some ultimate frisbee players. At one point Brian wonders whether Generation Z knows about the Matrix franchise, and they both felt really old. There's something for everybody in this Sweatpants episode unless you were looking for some stressful, high-key debates, in which case you're out of luck.