Today’s guest is Jigar Shah, a clean energy entrepreneur who served as director of the Loan Program Office in the US Department of Energy during the Biden administration. Previously, he was co-founder of Generate Capital, founder of Sun Edison, and founding CEO of the Carbon War Room. Now, he’s advising clean energy companies. He’s also a devout optimist. (I know, go figure.)

I interviewed Jigar for my book What if We Get It Right? back in April of 2023. Given how much has changed in the last 2+ years — especially since the start of the Trump administration 🫠 — I wanted check in with Jigar on where things stand on the clean energy transition. (AKA, WTF?!). From critical minerals to energy justice, to geothermal and nuclear, to battery recycling and salt caverns, we got into it all, folks.

TL;DR “We need to stop chasing shiny objects and start just executing on stuff that hasn’t yet been fully deployed.” — Jigar Shah

An abridged version of this interview will be added into the paperback edition of What If We Get It Right?, which will be coming your way in time for Earth Day. 📚✨

And while you’re listening, it’s super duper helpful if you follow, rate, review, and tell your crew. ✅ Thanks!

JIGAR'S CALL TO ACTION 🗣️

“People need to get engaged civically, in their sphere of influence. I don’t care whether it’s your school board, your knitting club, your church, your city council, your county, or if you have ambitions for your state, get involved and tell people: This is what is awesome. This is where my kids are gonna find a job. This is what is going to unlock all of this clean air and clean water.

I think people just assume this technology is gonna sell itself and it’s gonna be fine. We actually need permission from the local permitting board. We need permission from the local city council.

Think about how many school districts are saying, “Ugh, we know that all the diesel fumes are hurting the kids in the school buses, but it’s just too hard to go to electric, so we’re just gonna let another generation of kids suffer from fumes from diesel and school buses.” What? That’s your official policy? No! Get to the school board meeting.

Get involved because it matters. We are in this extraordinary revolution that’s gonna be beneficial for everyone. And I think people are just like, “Yeah, it’s gonna be fun to watch from the sidelines.” No! Get in the game.”

NOTES:

If you want more from Jigar, that’s smart of you. Check out his podcast Open Circuit, and follow him on LinkedIn.

This podcast is ad-free thanks to the support of Future Being, a grant making and special project studio, which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity.

This episode was produced and edited by Gabby Bulgarelli, and me, Ayana, with help from associate producer Jenisha Shrestha.

And if you’re new here, peruse the back catalog. A few dozen hours of sweet podcast conversations with incredible guests await you. ✨

Earthlings, hello! 👋🏽 This week’s guest is Ari Matusiak, CEO of Rewiring America, a nonprofit focused on accelerating the clean energy transition.

With the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits expiring on December 31st, I wanted to sit down with Ari to talk about our energy bills, how we can still install heat pumps and more before those incentives run out, how your home could become energy infrastructure for your community. Plus, soba noodles, K-pop, and the very sexy topic of group scheduling. Hold onto your hats. This episode is going to be electrifying. ⚡️

CALL TO ACTION 🗣️ from Ari: Visit www.rewiringamerica.org/save to learn about the Save on Better Appliances (SOBA) campaign and, in Ari’s words: "Get yourself a tax credit. Get yourself an electric coach. Get yourself a contractor. And get yourself something electric at the electric store."

Notes:

Check out Rewiring America’s new report: Homegrown Energy: How household upgrades can meet 100 percent of data center demand growth.

This podcast is ad-free thanks to the support of Future Being, a grant making and special project studio, which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity.

This episode was produced and edited by Gabby Bulgarelli, and me, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, with help from associate producer Jenisha Shrestha.

If you're enjoying the show, follow, rate, review, and to help others find us.

This August marked 20 years since Hurricane Katrina, and the devastation that storm had across the Gulf South is still reverberating throughout the country. Today I’m talking with Dr. Samantha Montano, a professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy and co-founder of Disaster Researchers for Justice. She wrote a great book called Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis.

Now, amidst a continuing string of disastrous storms and wildfires, there are massive cuts at FEMA. We are clearly getting this very wrong. So I wanted to check back in with Samantha to understand what’s really going on at FEMA under the Trump Administration 🧐 (from the horror of “Alligator Alcatraz” to dealing with cyberattacks), whether we’re more prepared for hurricanes now than we were 20 years ago (spoiler: nope!), and what we can do individually and collectively to up our preparedness game.🙋🏽‍♀️

CALLS TO ACTION from Samantha:

* ☎️ Call your member of Congress — (202) 224-3121: They don’t get many calls supporting FEMA, so this is helpful. Let them know: (1) we need funding for FEMA, (2) we need to hire more people at FEMA, (3) we need to remove FEMA from under the Dept of Homeland Security and re-establish it as a standalone agency, and (4) we need a qualified, Senate-confirmed emergency manager leading the agency.

* 👩🏽‍💻 Sign up for emergency alerts!: Absurdly, there is no centralized way to do this. So, embark on a tiny research project: google your town name + “emergency management,” and then find your county and state alerts too. This was you can be informed and ready to be a good neighbor.

* Advocate for local resources: Look into you local emergency management agency. Do they have funding? Do they have staff? Do they have a qualified person leading? Be the advocate in your community for emergency management — they don't have a lot of advocates at the local level, so this can really help.

NOTES:

If you're enjoying the show, please help others find us — follow, rate, review, and tell your crew!

Keep up with Dr. Montano's work via her Substack newsletter: Disasterology, a monthly dispatch of interesting and/or important disaster things.

This podcast is ad-free thanks to the support of Future Being. This episode was produced and edited by Gabby Bulgarelli, and me, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, with help from associate producer Jenisha Shrestha.

Alright, Earthlings 🌎 see you next week. xo

Welcome to Season 3 of the What If We Get It Right? podcast! 🥳

If you’re new here: This show is about what we need to do to address the climate crisis, and how to make those things happen. Here, we take climate change seriously but absolutely do not take ourselves seriously. We take a brutally honest look at the science, policy, economics, and culture of climate issues, and dive in on solutions and strategies that will help us create a livable future on Planet Earth.

My first guest for Season 3 is a stalwart of the climate movement. Bill McKibben is an environmentalist and journalist who, more than anyone, has proven to me the power of the pen. The words he writes have changed policies (e.g., Heat Pumps for Peace and Freedom!) and helped mobilize millions.

Bill’s got (for good reason) the most popular climate newsletter on Substack: The Crucial Years (highly recommend). And his new book, Here Comes The Sun, is an ode to the potential and necessity of massively ramping up solar energy.

Bill is founder of the non-profit Third Act, organizing his elder generation for action on climate and justice. (Join their Rocking Chair Rebellion.) They’re instigating Sun Day, the international day of action to celebrate clean energy 🥳, which will happen September 21st, the autumnal equinox. Head to sunday.earth to find an event near you.

I first met Bill when he came to Harvard to teach a climate seminar when I was an undergrad, and 25 years later, I’m so thrilled to be talking with him about the circular economy of photons, his modest proposal to make it rain solar panels, what his crew of old fogey climate activists is up to, the concept of energy liberation, and what he sees in his crystal ball.

_____

If you enjoy these conversations, follow the show, rate us, and tell all your friends. I know every podcast host says this 🫣, but given the ways algorithms etc. work, it truly is important for helping new listeners find us.

And thank you to Future Being, a grant making and special project studio that supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity. Their support keeps this show ad-free. This episode was produced and edited by Gabby Bulgarelli and me, with help from associate producer Jenisha Shrestha.

If you’ve read/listened all the way to the end: There is a prize! For the first 3 people who comment on this newsletter post sharing what you found most interesting or surprising about this conversation, I will send you a copy of Bill’s book. 💌 Drop your response at: ayanaelizabeth.substack.com.

Also, I want to know: What are you going to do to celebrate Sun Day on September 21st?!?

Alright, Earthlings. 🌎 See ya next week...

Hey there Earthlings. 🌎 Season 3 is launching next week! Thus, here’s a trailer with tidbits from previous seasons to get you stoked. We’ve got a dozen ace guests booked, and 4 episodes already recorded. We’re diving all the way in — on clean energy, FEMA, farming, messaging, and so much more. I’ll be re-interviewing a few of the experts I interviewed for my book because, turns out, some things have changed in the last year. 🫠 Anyway, follow/subscribe, rate/review, share with your homies. More coming very soon...

I'm aiming to live a more analog life in August (🛶🥾🏕️), so, until September, leaving you with this summer listening: an excerpt from my audiobook, the chapter titled “Away From the Brink.” To remind you, that book (which inspired this podcast) is What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures.

This chapter is essentially my answer to the BIG question: What if we get it right? What would that look like and feel like? I hope it's appealing to you — and perhaps even sparks something in you.

If you dig it, you can listen to the whole audiobook wherever you listen to those. Or, if you prefer to consume books the old fashioned way, head over to the library or your local bookstore. Maybe you’ll find a kindred spirit in the nature aisle.

And I’ll be back in September with fresh episodes of What If We Get It Right?, plus a tour of colleges across the US. (More on that in my newsletter: ayanaelizabeth.substack.com.)

Hey there Earthlings. I’m living a more analog life this summer (highly recommend). 🛶🏕️📚 So for this week’s episode, I want to introduce you to another podcast I think you just might love.It’s called Science Vs., hosted by Wendy Zuckerman. In each episode they tackle a different topic to sort out what’s fact, what’s fiction, and what’s still TBD.

As a scientist and lover of facts, I super appreciate how Wendy and her team dig into the scientific literature, fact check everything, share their sources, and interview experts. So I think you’ll enjoy the episode “Climate Crisis: We’re Solving It?!” Their description:

“The climate is a mess. It's hot. There's fires, floods, hurricanes — and we may have even crossed some rather scary climate tipping points. But there is hope. So today, we’re answering your questions about solving the climate crisis. We find out how you can help in the fight against climate change, if carbon offsets are a scam, whether renewables really work and what exciting new technologies could help save the planet. Our guests are Dr. Sven Teske at the University of Technology, Sydney, and Wei Sue, head of strategy at Monash University's Climateworks Center.”

If you dig it, subscribe!

Hey there Earthlings. 🩵 If you’ve been paying any attention to U.S. politics, these past 2 weeks have been a doozy.

So, let’s get into the Big Brutal Billionaire Bailout Bill of it all. Welcome to this very special collab episode of What If We Get It Right? x Twigg & Jenkins. Carri Twigg (hey bestie) and Brad Jenkins (who was her officemate in the Obama White House) host my favorite politics podcast. So smart, so incisive, so fun. Yes, you should definitely follow/subscribe.

We hopped on a call to sort through the wreckage together. WTF just happened with climate, healthcare, militarization, and our democracy? What should the Democrats do next? Sometimes you gotta dive way in to how things went so wrong to see what getting it right would have looked like. Also, the Beyoncé tour.

Looking for what to do next? Here's my take.

HOT TIPS:

* If you were thinking about getting an electric vehicle, BUY IT NOW. The new budget bill cancels the $7,500 tax credit for EVs that was established through Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the tax credit for leasing EVs too, effective Sept 30th.

* If you were thinking of making energy efficiency/electrification improvements to your home, DO IT NOW. The new budget bill cancels the IRA tax credits for everything from solar panels (30% credit!), to induction stoves, heat pumps, insulating your attic, installing more energy efficient windows and doors, etc., effective December 31, 2025.

CREDITS: This podcast is made possible with the support of Future being a grant making and special project studio, which supports the healing of our planet and the safeguarding of biological and cultural diversity. This episode was produced and edited by Matthew Nelson and me (Ayana) with help from Associate Producer Jenisha Shrestha.

If you have a Republican senator: call, email, comment on all their social posts. Tell them to vote NO on the abominable budget bill. Get your friends to do it too. ☎️ Seriously, call Congress: (202) 224-3121. (Especially if you live in Maine or Alaska.) Details in this week's newsletter and all over the news.

Okay, Season 2 is a wrap — 12 delightful conversations with people showing us the ways forward on climate. This summer, we’ll be dreaming up season 3… so if have any wishes, ideas, or requests, drop a note over on Substack and let us know: ayanaelizabeth.substack.com. Piping hot new content coming in autumn, and in the meantime, enjoy the 24 episodes in the full back catalog. We’ll also drop some other treats in the feed for ya over the summer.

But for now, a rerun of one of my favorite episodes from Season 1: a conversation with adrienne maree brown, best-selling author, activist, facilitator, a songwriter, a poet, and a doula. I've read and highly recommend her books Emergent Strategies and Loving Corrections. 

This was recorded November 2024, just a few days before the presidential election, but these insights from adrienne, and the topics we grappled with, are still right on time — including major questions of our era like which one of us would be Rhianna and which one of us would be Beyoncé.

Today’s guest is Ben Wolkon. Ben is founding partner at MUUS Climate Partners, a venture capital firm that invests exclusively in climate solutions, and operates on the belief that “climate is the biggest business opportunity of the 21st century.”

To be honest, when I think of venture capital, I often think of like that "greed is good" mentality and just corny finance bros. And maybe that's a bit unfair. But I'm also very pleased to say that Ben is nothing like that. He's thoughtful, and generous, super funny, and cares so deeply about this sweet planet we live on.

We discussed the role of venture capital in climate solutions, the cool high tech emerging technologies that he’s most excited about, and how critical it is that we keep a sense of humor.

Ben’s CALLS TO ACTION

Make your voice heard to policymakers at the federal level. Right now, there is a bill in the Senate that has massive ramifications for climate policy. Call your reps and tell them not to cut funding for climate solutions!

Make your voice heard at the state and local levels. Advocate for more bike lanes, or more trees planted, or better transportation policy. The more you do that, the more the politicans who count on your votes will understand that these issues should be a priority for them.

If you want a climate-focused job, get proactive about finding one. Breaking into climate tech or breaking into some job that has an environmental benefit is actually super easy once you start looking and start trying. Make cold calls! We need you.

Mentioned in this episode

* MUUS Climate Partners

* Vox: Jay Inslee’s presidential campaign is all about climate change

* Clean tech companies: BrightNight, Panthalassa, Cache Energy

* Data centers in the U.S. consume about 4.4% of the country’s total electricity demand in 2023, and that is expected to triple to 12% by 2028.

* The Inflation Reduction Act could have put the U.S. on a path to reduce emissions by up to 48% by 2035.

CREDITS: This episode was made possible 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. This show is produced and edited by Matthew Nelson/Stramash Media and me (Ayana), with help from Jenisha Shrestha. And many thanks to our guest Ben Wolkon.