Where The Climate Things Are

Aaron Long is a trail race director with Daybreak Racing, producing a dozen trail events a year across Oregon, Washington, and California. He grew up on the central Oregon coast, ran track and cross country, had a coaching career that took him to each corner of the country, and then moved home in 2022 to help build Daybreak alongside his brother, Jeremy. We talk about the coaching philosophy his college career taught him, what it's like to watch snowpack and fire season shift year after year from the front lines of race planning, and why he believes people are more likely to protect the wild places they've actually been.

Julie Carrick Dalton is a novelist and former organic farmer whose climate awakening began on her own land in New Hampshire, where she discovered that the local growing season had stretched by 22 days over the past century. She is the author of Waiting for the Night Song and The Last Beekeeper, and her third novel, The Forest Becomes Her, arrives this month from St. Martin's Press. In this conversation, Addie and Julie discuss Julie's path from journalist to farmer to novelist, what climate fiction can accomplish that a report cannot, and the personal grief and unexpected climate solution behind her new book.

This week, meteorologist and former TV weather anchor Keith Carson joins the Where The Climate Things Are podcast to talk about what it actually takes to communicate about climate change, which can sometimes (always?) be a tough topic! Keith spent nearly 20 years in Maine broadcasting — including three years at The Weather Channel — before making the move to Maine Conservation Voters, where he now leads communications. While his background in atmospheric science shapes how he thinks about evidence, his time in local TV shapes how he thinks about audience. The combination is pretty rare in the climate space, and it shows in the work he’s doing. Tune in for more!

Additional shownotes can be found at wtcta.substack.com

Our guest this week is Stephanie Case. Steph spent fifteen years as a UN human rights lawyer – deploying to Afghanistan, South Sudan, Gaza, and the Middle East – while training for ultras by running in circles inside armed compounds when that was the only option. Last year, after years of IVF and miscarriages, she had her daughter Pepper, won a 100K in Snowdonia while breastfeeding at a checkpoint, and signed a professional athlete contract with The North Face at age 43. Free to Run, the organization she founded over a decade ago, advances gender equity in conflict zones through outdoor running programs and currently operates in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. The model insists on outdoor, not indoor: women moving through public space is itself an argument about what women are allowed to be.

Full shownotes on Substack: wtcta.substack.com

Our guest on the Where The Climate Things Are podcast this week is Anna Gibson – you might know her from her insane trail running career or from the 2026 Winter Olympics in ski mountaineering, but you might not know that she also holds a graduate degree in environmental law. Anna grew up at the base of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, spent her childhood in a Volkswagen camper van, and was casually writing climate fiction in just third grade. She went on to work in grassroots advocacy in Jackson, WY before launching a into a career as an elite athlete at the international level in not one but TWO sports.

Full shownotes: wtcta.substack.com

My guest today is Dani Burton, Sponsorship Manager at 11th Hour Racing – a Newport, Rhode Island-based organization working at the intersection of ocean health, behavior change, and community action through sport, storytelling, and grantmaking. The organization supports ambassador networks, funds coastal restoration grantees, and develops free tools like MarineShift360 to help the maritime industry measure and reduce its impact. This weekend, 11th Hour is sponsoring Newport Rhode Races as a live model for what genuinely sustainable event design looks like – and a demonstration that those practices can scale to any size event.Newport Rhode Races — this Saturday, April 18 in Newport, RI 11th Hour Racing Protect Our Winters

Jes Parker is the founder of Take2Trail, a used and overstocked trail running gear marketplace she built from scratch. Jes is a self-described “glitter and dirt” person: someone with genuine high standards for quality who also spent a decade rolling through obstacle courses in mud, water and fire. That combination – high-touch, deeply embedded in the trail community, and unwilling to cut corners on condition – is exactly what makes Take2Trail different from other peer-to-peer resale sites.

Full shownotes: wtcta.substack.com

This week, we head back to the WTCTA Substack. Addie reads (and comments on) her recent article "The Diary of a Weatherwoman's Daughter" on Substack. Buckle up, we're going to Maine! (and Micronesia, and New York City, and back to Maine again...)

Full article: wtcta.substack.com

Our guest this week on the Where The Climate Things Are podcast is Bart Mihailovich. Bart is the Director of Waterkeeper Membership Services at Waterkeeper Alliance – a global network of 300 waterkeeper groups protecting watersheds across 47 countries. Each chapter is autonomous, place-based, and licensed to protect a specific watershed, doing everything from water quality monitoring and litigation to habitat restoration and challenging polluters directly. Bart’s job is to hold the whole ecosystem together: connecting groups, building shared infrastructure, and making sure a waterkeeper in South Carolina and one in Senegal can learn from each other.

Full show notes available at wtcta.substack.com

A rundown of a few recent events: Big Alta heatwave, UTMB's Tenerife cancellation, the LA Marathon's 18-mile medal, and the recent Paralympic temperatures/conditions.

Check out the full roundup on substack with links: wtcta.substack.com