A tale of over-ups, poison, sludge, and the last bipartisan environmental issue. They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals by Mariah Blake is a true crime story on the scale of what the tobacco and fossil fuel industries have done to knowingly imperil our health and our futures. But this book also highlights what’s possible when unlikely advocates, regular folks, come together and unite for a common cause. In other words, there are heroes in this story too.

The book is a landmark investigation that required years of her on-the-ground reporting and reviewing tens of thousands of documents. The topic is PFAS, substances that are more commonly called “forever chemicals.” Mariah's book tells the story of these incredibly dangerous substances and the lives they’ve impacted — from their genesis in the Manhattan Project, to becoming so ubiquitous that they are present in the blood of virtually every human being, and in the drinking water of about half the people in America.

Mariah Blake is an incredible investigative journalist. She’s written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, The New Republic, and other publications. She was a Murrey Marder Nieman Fellow in Watchdog Journalism at Harvard University. And I was truly honored that she asked me to be in conversation with her to launch her book tour.

As Mariah explains, PFAS chemicals affect us all. And her reporting especially timely because just last week the Environmental Protection Agency announced that they plan to weaken restrictions for certain forever chemicals in our drinking water.

CALLS TO ACTION:

* Advocate for stricter standards and a class-wide ban on PFAS. Find a local organization working on this and join them. (Like Brunswick Area Citizens for a Safe Environment, some of whose members were in the live audience.) Track your state’s progress here.

* Reduce your own PFAS exposure — use natural materials for cooking and storing food, filter drinking water (consider reverse osmosis, look for NSF certification).

Mentioned in the episode:

* Mariah’s book:They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals

* Washington Post’s review of Mariah’s book: Chemical makers they the harm. It didn’t matter.

* News: EPA will weaken rule curbing ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water

* News: Massive Brunswick PFAS spill is Maine’s largest ever firefighting foam contamination

* Op-ed in Washington Post (coining the term ‘forever chemicals’): The EPA is trying to regulate 6 forever chemicals. Just 10,000 to go.

* News: America’s Dairyland May Have a PFAS Problem

* Story of Fred Stone: The curious case of tainted milk from a Maine dairy farm

* News: Maine bans use of sewage sludge on farms to reduce risk of PFAS poisoning

* News:Taco Bell to remove chemicals of concern from packaging

* Overview of NSF certification

* Research Article: Outside the Safe Operating Space of a New Planetary Boundary for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)

* Research Article: Historical Comparison of Perfluorooctanesulfonate, Perfluorooctanoate, and Other Fluorochemicals in Human Blood

CREDITS: This podcast was made possible in part with the support of Future Being, a grantmaking and special projects studio which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity. It’s produced and edited by Matthew Nelson/Stramash Media and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, with help from Jenisha Shrestha. Thank you to This episode was taped in front of a live audience at SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine for hosting this event. And many thanks to our guest Mariah Blake.

Today's guest, Sarah Stillman, is a Pulitzer and MacArthur genius award-winning journalist. She founded and leads the Investigative Reporting Lab at Yale, and she's been a staff writer at The New Yorker for about a decade. Sarah’s writing typically focuses on our immigration and justice systems, but increasingly (and in some part due to my nudges), she's also writing about climate change.

Sarah's first piece about climate was an essay, “Like the Monarch,” she wrote for my first book, All We Can Save, an anthology I co-edited with the wonderful Dr. Katherine Wilkinson. And, fun fact, Sarah is also a very dear friend. During the pandemic we would have long telephone conversations while we were going on walks in the woods on opposite coasts. We’d talk about work and writing and climate change, and also dating and family and heartache — the whole spectrum of comedy of errors that is life. 🫠

I am so excited to let you in to one of our meandering, deep dive conversations. Welcome to the inner circle, with the one and only Sarah Stillman.

Sarah's Calls to Action:

* Interview the people you love about what they love about nature that they want to defend

* Find something to investigate. Document the extreme weather events that are happening to you and the causes — and cite that climate attribution science

* Support local and national public media. Visit your local public library.

Mentioned in the episode:

* Sarah's articles: The Migrant Workers Who Follow Climate Disasters; When Climate Change and Xenophobia Collide; 'The Missing White Girl Syndrome': Disappeared Women and Media Activism.

* Her full New Yorker archive and website

* International Refugee Assistance Project

* Investigative Reporting Lab at Yale

* ProPublica’s investigative series on Sacrifice Zones: Mapping Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution

CREDITS: This podcast was made possible in part with the support of Future Being, a grantmaking and special projects studio which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity. It’s produced and edited by Matthew Nelson/Stramash Media and me, with help from Jenisha Shrestha.

Hey there Earthlings. 💛 We’re talking sustainability and fashion, again. It’s a major industry impacting the environment and shaping the cultural context within which we make climate decisions... and I may be overcompensating for having not given fashion a chapter in the What If We Get It Right? book.

A few weeks ago, I shared here a conversation on Sustainable Fashion and the Art of Care with supermodel/artist Cameron Russell. And what better time to continue this discussion than in the wake of the 2025 Met Gala. Our guest this week is phenom Gabriela Hearst, a super-eco designer.

I spoke with Gabi in her Manhattan studio, at a table she’s had for decades, on chairs she’d upcycled. We discussed her commitment to sustainability across her entire supply chain, how she turned iconic French fashion house Chloe into a B-corp while she was creative director there, how growing up on a ranch in Uruguay informed her worldview and approach to climate work, and her complete obsession with fusion power.

GABI’S CALLS TO ACTION

* Be kind. Reach for the balance of heart and mind.

* Meditate — just close your eyes and breathe.

* Buy less. Buy high quality items that will last.

REFERENCES:

* Gabriela Hearst at COP27 - Fusion: Clean Energy for All

* Overview of B-Corp

* Article on Designers for Democracy

* Fossil fuels account for 82% of global energy mix.

* More than 23 million people face severe hunger due to drought in Horn of Africa.

CREDITS: Produced and edited by Matthew Nelson/Stramash Media and me, with help from assistant producer Jenisha Shrestha.

This week, I’m chatting with Jainey Bavishi, an expert in climate adaptation and resilience. We cover everything from social aid and pleasure clubs, to recovering from climate disasters, civic infrastructure, why we should absolutely not privatize weather forecasts, and – of course! – what getting it right in coastal cities looks like, in New York City, New Orleans, and beyond. I’m so glad to be sharing this conversation with you, because local action matters so much right now.

One in seven people in the U.S. live in coastal cities — that’s more than 47 million Americans. Plus, the U.S. coastal economy supports 54.6 million jobs and contributes $10 trillion to our total GDP. And this is certainly not a so-called "coastal elite" issue — poverty and unemployment rates are higher in coastal cities than the national average. Plus, coastal areas face the threats of sea level rise and storms made stronger and more damaging by climate change.

Climate adaptation for coastal cities is what we work on at Urban Ocean Lab, the nonprofit policy think tank I co-founded, and where Jainey is an advisor. But Jainey and I first met back in 2011, when we both worked in Washington, DC in the policy office at the headquarters of NOAA, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration. She’s since gone on to work in the Obama White House, served as the director of climate resiliency for the City of New York, and headed back to DC to be the deputy administrator for the entire federal agency of NOAA under the Biden Administration. Now, she is a Senior Climate Resilience Fellow at the University of Miami.

JAINEY’s CALLS TO ACTION

* Take care of yourselves and take care of your communities.

* Invest in civic infrastructure, like mutual aid organizations.

* Call your member of Congress and ask them to protect NOAA and defend the services it provides.

REFERENCES

* Urban Ocean Lab policy think tank for climate adaptation in coastal cities (and our Urban Ocean Lab Substack newsletter)

* New York City’s East Side Coastal Resiliency Project

* Rebuild By Design’s Big U Project

* California’s $10M Bond Act (Proposition 4 Spending Plan)

* University of Miami Climate Resilience Institute

* NOAA Programs under attack:

* Office for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research

* National Estuarine Research Reserves

* National Coastal Zone Management Program

* Sea Grant Program

* National Weather Service

* In New York City, scientists project sea levels could rise up to six feet by 2100.

* During Superstorm Sandy, although 85% of the wetlands in New York and New Jersey had already been destroyed by development, what little remained prevented $625 million of damage.

CREDITS: Produced and edited by Matthew Nelson/Stramash Media and me, with help from Jenisha Shrestha and many thanks to our guest Jainey Bavishi.

What the heck is going on in environmental law right now? Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University’s has some answers for us. In this episode, we talk federal climate funding, the billions of dollars that are at stake (frozen, impounded, and otherwise), and what’s going on with climate law at the international and local levels.

Michael’s CALLS TO ACTION: (1) Don't despair. (2) Solutions require political support, so don’t run away from the politics. (3) Find resources that help inform your activities — like those at climate.law.columbia.edu.

Bonus — Ayana’s CALL TO ACTION: Follow/rate/review 🌟 the show (I feel so dorky asking, but it legit matters) and tell your fellow Earth lovers to tune in.

REFERENCES:

Explainers on the Clean Air Act and the National Environmental Policy Act

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Key resources from the Sabin Center: Climate Change Litigation Database, Climate Backtracker, and New York State Climate Law Tracker.

International Court of Justice: Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change

Announcement from Lee Zeldin (EPA Administrator) about the Trump Administration’s massive push to roll back environmental regulations

Urban Ocean Lab’s Climate Readiness Framework for Coastal Cities

CREDITS: Producer and editor Matthew Nelson/Stramash Media, associate producer Jenisha Shrestha, and executive produced by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.

This episode, we're talking sustainable fashion and the simple joys of care and repair with supermodel, author, activist, and friend Cameron Russell. Also: why stats on the climate impacts of fashion are super sketchy.

If you haven’t heard of Cameron, chances are you’ve seen her. As a model, she’s appeared on many magazine covers for Vogue and Elle, and on runways and billboards for brands like Prada, Calvin Klein, and Victoria’s Secret.

But Cameron’s not only recognized for her modeling. She's been an activist and organizer her entire adult life – particularly on workers rights in the fashion industry and on climate. She co-founded Model Mafia, a network of hundreds of models to use their platforms to advocate for “a more equitable, just, sustainable industry and world."

CALLS TO ACTION: 1. Do care work, and value the care work of others. 2. Share resources, be it clothing, food, or soccer cleats your kids grow out of.

While you’re listening, please take a second to follow this podcast, rate it, leave a review 🌟, and tell your people to tune in. Support more climate content getting out into the world!

REFERENCES: To learn more about Cameron’s work, head to cameronrussell.org. Video Cameron produced in 2009 to explain the name of climate group 350.org. Her 2012 viral TED Talk, “Looks aren’t everything. Believe me, I’m a model.” (Just re-watched; still so good.) Art show she co-curated in 2025 called The Art of Care. Cameron's poignant and expertly-crafted memoir, How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone.

CREDITS: Produced and edited and Matthew Nelson/Stramash Media, with help with from Jenisha Shrestha.

For podcast bonus content and my written musings on climate and culture, subscribe to the What If We Get It Right? newsletter.

Greetings, Earthlings! 🌏 Welcome to Season 2 of the What If We Get It Right? podcast.

If you’re new here (hi!) let me quickly read you in: I wrote a book called What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures (which became a NY Times Bestseller! 😮). The heart of that book is 20 interviews with people sharing what getting it right on climate could look like and how we can make those visions into reality.

Of course, way more than 20 people have important insights for how we can get things more right on climate. Hence, a podcast to continue the conversations about solutions for creating a livable future on Planet Earth. Tada!

In each episode I’ll interview an expert — from producers, to fashion designers, to lawyers, to policymakers, to investors to journalists, and more — who will drop some knowledge. 💎 These folks also happen to be my friends, so it’s a freaking delight to yap with them.

Since we’ve gotta do more than just imagine getting it right (although that is a critical step), in every episode, there will be advice and calls to action. And jokes, there will be jokes.

Our first guest is the reason there even is a season 2: Carri Twigg, my homie and co-founder of production company Culture House. She’s also worked in politics at all levels of government from super local to the Obama White House. We're diving in on how cultural change precedes policy change.

By the end of this episode, you will want to hear more from Carri. Luckily, she’s got an incredible politics podcast, Twigg & Jenkins, and a great Substack newsletter, Carri Twigg's Cultural Capitol — subscribe!

Carri's calls to Action 📣: (1) Clean up your algorithm. Apply some hygiene to your media consumption. (2) Be okay consuming less. Quench your desire to accumulate stuff. (3) Start a podcast. 🤣

CREDITS: We have a new producer/editor for this season. Welcome the very talented Matthew Nelson/Stramash Media! And thank you to associate producer Jenisha Shrestha.

MENTIONED: The Blue Green Alliance, Rewiring America, and their Electric Creatives pledge.

For behind the scenes pics and more, subscribe to the What If We Get It Right? newsletter.

My guest this episode is The Jean Flemma. Jean spent over two decades working on Capitol Hill as staff to members of Congress, making magic behind the scenes over and over again. She is an absolute wizard of ocean and climate policy and the politics of achieving policy change.

Jean and I co-founded Urban Ocean Lab, a nonprofit think tank for the future of coastal cities. So you’ll hear a bit about that in this episode. Heaps of good change can happen at the city government level — adapting to climate impacts, helping communities become more resilient, and simply taking care of the people who live there.

🎙️PODCAST UPDATE — That's a wrap on Season 1, and... there will be a season 2! Coming in hot in April. 🔥

In the meantime, check out the Season 1 back catalog if you missed some episodes. 🥰 And before season 2 is fully-baked, we’d love to hear from you: What have you liked or disliked or found valuable or annoying in these first dozen episodes? What topics or guests would you be stoked for? Email us: [email protected].

CREDITS: Many thanks to Powell’s Books for hosting us for this event, and thank you as always to my chief of staff Jenisha Shrestha. Shoutout Nora Saks, who produced and edited every single episode of season one with me. It was an absolute delight to collaborate with her. Thank you, Nora.

For behind-the-scenes pics from each episode, plus other musings from Ayana on climate and culture, subscribe to the What If We Get It Right? newsletter.

In the last few months, the term “Green New Deal” has been popping up a lot again. And it’s the Trump administration bringing it up — as a boogeyman, as a foil for everything his crew fears about accelerating the clean energy transition.

So I thought it would be a good time to discuss: What actually is the Green New Deal? How far have we gotten on implementing the concepts it includes? And why do those ideas still matter?

My guest for this episode is Rhiana Gunn-Wright, one of the original architects of the Green New Deal. Recently, she was Director of Climate Policy at the Roosevelt Institute. Now, she is consulting and writing a book about the intersections among white supremacy, addiction, and climate change. Suffice it to say, I’ve been eagerly following her work since we met at policy workshop she organized, back in 2019.

Note that this conversation was recorded back in October while I was on my book tour, and the political context has, well,… changed a little bit since then. But there's much more to this conversation than the Green New Deal. And her ideas about what shapes climate policy should take — from industry to employment to health care to democracy — are absolutely as relevant as ever.

This episode was produced and edited by Nora Saks and me, with recording assistance in Chicago from Troy Cruz. And big thank you to Semicolon Books for hosting us.

p.s. Call your representatives!

Near the end of my book tour, I found myself gazing up at those large concrete guard lions outside the New York Public Library, astounded to be entering for an event about my book.

The occasion was all the more sweet because it was a family affair: I was in conversation with my cousin Steve Connell, whose incredible poem “This Living Earth” appears in my book (and which you get to hear him read in this episode!). We talked about how our family shaped us, the role of art and humor in the serious work of climate, and early inspirations.

And the ultimate sweetness was that my 1st grade science teacher was in the audience, right in front. You’ll hear our warm reunion in the audio — thank you, thank you, Ms. Kristiansen. ❤️

CREDITS: This episode was produced and edited by Nora Saks, and me, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Big thanks to my cousin Steve Connell, and to the New York Public Library for hosting us and for recording this audio. And a huge thank you, credit where it’s due, to all the wonderful teachers out there. You never know the ripples that you create in the world...