Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast

Many of us living through the climate emergency are asking, how do we support positive change in the world? How do I bring presence and insight into my daily life and the global challenges we face? How do I cultivate inner peace amidst these crises? How can I show up in my daily life as my authentic self?  This week on the podcast, our very own host Tom Rivett-Carnac moonlights as a guest for a special episode of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives. Presenters, Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and journalist Jo Confino, discuss with Tom the power that deep spiritual grounding has to make mindfulness a tool for individual and collective awakening, not only in life in general, but specifically during an ecological and climate crisis. Tom also talks about his early-life experience as a Buddhist monk; the benefits of spiritual development, how it precipitates coming together without egoic attachment to find collective solutions, and how to use it as a tool to integrate practice and activism. And stick around to the end of the episode for a ‘The Way Out Is In’ tradition, a short meditation guided by Brother Phap Huu.   -   NOTES AND RESOURCES   Listen and Subscribe to ‘The Way Out Is In’   Plum Village App Twitter | YouTube | Instagram   Thich Nhat Hanh Twitter | Foundation   Plum Village Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube   Brother Chân Pháp Hữu Instagram   Jo Confino Instagram   Next ‘The Way Out Is In’ Recommended Episodes To LISTEN To: War And Peace (Ukraine) Zen and The Art of Saving The Planet Wise Leadership w/ Lindsay Levin   WATCH: ‘A Cloud Never Dies’ on YouTube READ: ‘Zen and The Art of Saving the Planet’ by Thich Nhat Hanh Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, a bonus episode with something a little different than normal. Join us for a dinner conversation at Tom's house with Satish Kumar! Peace-pilgrim, life-long activist and former monk, Satish Kumar has been inspiring global change for over 50 years. Aged 9, Satish renounced the world and joined the wandering Jain monks. Inspired by Gandhi, he decided at 18 that he could achieve more back in the world and soon undertook a peace-pilgrimage, walking without money from India to America in the name of nuclear disarmament. Now in his 80s, Satish has devoted his life to campaigning for ecological regeneration, social justice and spiritual fulfillment. So find a seat, grab a glass, and enjoy the conversation! - NOTES AND RESOURCES   Schumacher College Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn The Resurgence Trust Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Website | Discounted Membership Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to another episode of Outrage + Optimism!  As always, we examine issues at the forefront of the climate crisis, interview change-makers, and transform our anger into productive dialogue on building a sustainable future.  In this episode, co-hosts Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac, and Paul Dickinson discuss the anti-ESG (environmental, social, and governance) movement in the U.S. and its broader implications for the role of corporate institutions in an increasingly climate-sensitive world. You’ll hear from Jesse Coleman, Senior Researcher with investigative watchdog and journalism project Documented. Jesse and his team have uncovered some astounding research on the sobering reality behind the ESG pushback. You won’t want to miss a second of this important and intriguing discussion! Also, enjoy the outro track, entitled “Frying Paint,” from guest artist, Archive. Details, including a link to the brilliant video, are in the show notes below. See you next time! CORRECTION: Our host Paul Dickinson mentions in the show that Paul Watchman produced a fiduciary duty report for Linklaters.  The fiduciary duties report Paul Watchman was responsible for was from Freshfields....not Linklaters.  NOTES AND RESOURCES    Jesse Coleman  Twitter | Documented   Learn more about Jesse’s research on Documented  LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram   Read a joint report on ExxonMobil by Jesse (Documented) and Emily Atkin (HEATED)   Huge, huge shout out to Jason Schwartz and Kathleen Brophy at The Sunrise Project for their incredible work bringing this anti-ESG movement to our attention, and for all their help and generosity.   The Sunrise Project State Financial Officers Foundation Texas Public Policy Foundation   Music This Week: Archive  Twitter | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Music   Tom + Clay recommend Archive’s video for “Frying Paint” Clay’s Pick of The Week - Archive’s “Shouting Within” Be sure to check out “The Way Out Is In” - our sister podcast with Plum Village! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to another episode of Outrage + Optimism.  As always, we examine issues at the forefront of the climate crisis, interview change-makers, and transform our anger into productive dialogue on building a sustainable future.  In this episode, co-hosts Christiana Figueres and Paul Dickinson are joined by guest co-host and friend, Dean Bialek. Dean has worked on climate change for years in his native Australia, which is especially relevant to today’s episode.   The team spends some time Down Under一well, proverbially speaking一conversing with Aussies-extraordinaire Zali Steggall, Australia’s most renown international alpine skier, Teal Movement founder, and current independent member of the Australian Parliament for Warringah; and Mike Cannon-Brookes, climate activist and Co-Founder and Co-CEO of software juggernaut Atlassian Corporation Plc. Our guests weigh in on Australia’s new government, its audacious climate bill, and how a nation chock-full of renewable resources (but historically low political will) could be about to pivot to climate superpower status.  We also have an update on the Environmental Music Prize from Edwina Floch, Founder of The Environmental Music Prize as well as a music track from the Winner of the Prize, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard. You won’t want to miss this inspiring podcast episode一It’s definitely ace!   NOTES AND RESOURCES    To learn more about our planet’s climate emergency and how you can transform outrage into optimistic action subscribe to the podcast here.   Thank you to our guest co-host, Dean Bialek!   Dean Bialek Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram - Thank you to our guests this week!   Zali Steggall | Member Australian Parliament for Warringah Twitter |  Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Website   Mike Cannon-Brookes | Co-founder and Co-CEO of Atlassian Twitter | LinkedIn   Atlassian  Website | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube - Congratulations to our musical guest and winner of the 1st Environmental Music Prize, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard!   King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | BandCamp | Website   Go watch their Prize-Winning Music Video “If Not Now, Then When” on YouTube **Note from Clay** - It’s f***ing awesome Listen more from the Environmental Music Prize and sign up for their newsletter to stay tuned for next year's prize!   Edwina Floch LinkedIn | Twitter   Environmental Music Prize Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube   -   Check out Tom’s appearance on the Coliving Conversations podcast. Learn more about Australia’s Climate Change Bill 2022 Learn more about the Australia Asia Powerlink by Sun Cable Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to this week’s episode - It’s a packed agenda. Our hosts cover everything from nature breakdown in the UK, the threat of nuclear war in Europe, the downfall of a World Bank President and plenty in-between. We also hear from the incredible Helen Clarkson and Catherine McKenna on everything to do with greenwashing, carbon tax and the power of straight-talking on climate. For those of you working in the corporate world and grappling with climate action, this is an episode you do not want to miss. Helen Clarkson, CEO of the Climate Group which convenies Climate Week NYC, shares a fascinating insight at the disconnect happening within companies on the road to net zero, who are now having to turn their commitments into real action. And that brings us to the fascinating conversation on greenwashing with Catherine McKenna, Chair of something with an extraordinarily long and very difficult to say without reading your notes name: the UN’s High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities. We talk about how, while we’re all outraged - rightly - by greenwashing, we still need to lift up the folks who are doing the real work and not lump everyone in the same group. And there’s more: on the balance between integrity and momentum, supply chain efficiencies, understanding risk, a price on carbon, disclosure and what blockchain has to do with all of that. We wrap up with a gorgeous song from Finnegan Tui. Your ears will thank you for staying on to listen.   Notes and Resources    Thank you to our guests this week:    Helen Clarkson | Chief Executive Office at the Climate Group  Twitter   Climate Group Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram Catch all of last week’s Climate Week NYC On Demand   Catherine McKenna | Chair of H-LEG - the UN’s High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities. Twitter - Thank you to our musical guest this week, Finnegan Tui! Finnegan Tui Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Website Patreon | Bandcamp Watch the ‘ZEPHYR’ Audio-Visual Journey on YouTube - Congratulations to Global Optimism’s very own Freya Newman on her Masters Resarch being published in Nature Communications! - For more on WBG President David Malpass’s controversial remarks, start here. -  @OutrageOptimism is where we are online! Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In an event as rare as the triple Jovian eclipse on Jupiter, Christiana, Tom and Paul recorded this episode together! As in IRL together! Physically at the same table! Having graduated from their humble beginnings which saw them huddled together around a mic in a San Francisco bathroom (not ‘toilet’ as the Brits call it, conjuring up all kinds of odd visions for our US audiences), they are now broadcasting to you listeners from Tom’s ‘cozy’ New York hotel room, bringing us all the news and highlights from the first half of Climate Week NYC. Christiana shares that alongside all the useful conversations that will be happening this week as the community grapples with solutions to tackling the climate crisis, the need for a gut belief that we CAN solve this crisis is critical. A belief she is sensing is worryingly absent… Tom’s prediction for the next mega trend in the climate movement and philanthropy is in the form of strategic communications and political economy building. Paul meanwhile is inspired by the role cities can play in implementing much needed governance and policy without the obstacles that are present in high level government. While our special guest this week, the Financial Times columnist, Martin Wolf might not self-identify as an optimist, his conversation with Christiana, Tom and Paul offers a  fascinating analysis of the economic, corporate and political forces that we find ourselves at the mercy of, the reasons behind the rise of populism and what he thinks it will take for us to really collectively wake up to this crisis. And of course another incredible song from our new friend, Tommy WÁ. Stick around to the end to hear an exclusive performance from him!   Notes and Resources    Thank you to our phone guest this week, Martin Wolf!   Martin Wolf | Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times Twitter   Be sure to check out Martin’s Column in The Financial Times   - Thank you to our musical guest this week, Tommy WÁ!   Tommy WÁ Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkTree | YouTube   Check out Tommy’s Live from NYC 3 Song Concert on YouTube - The EarthShot Prize Innovation Summit 2022 was a major highlight this week. Christiana moderated! - Your inside scoop to Climate Week NYC - @OutrageOptimism Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to a brand new season of Outrage + Optimism! We have missed you, friends! This summer break in the Global North was yet another massive climate summer with much to talk about. We kick off this jam-packed episode acknowledging the sad passing of Queen Elizabeth II with personal reflections from the hosts Christiana, Tom and Paul as well as a touching conversation with Henry Dallal, a photographer who was regularly commissioned to capture Queen Elizabeth during the last few decades of her reign. Christiana offers us a unique insight from Gastech, the world's largest gas, LNG, hydrogen, and energy event that saw lone-climate-advocate Christiana deliver a strong speech to 40,000 executives on their role and moral duty to tackle emissions in their industry. A speech that is not to be missed and you can watch the full version here. The hosts turn their attention to the key events of the summer that offered the global community both hope and sorrow as the world watched with keen optimism as the implications of Biden’s IRA legislation unfolded, Australia successfully passed a key climate bill through government, and India, Australia and Egypt submitted new NDCs ahead of UNGA and COP 27. With heavy hearts however Christiana, Tom and Paul considered the devastating impact of the Pakistan floods that left a third of the country under water, mass crop failure, many lives lost including children, and vital infrastructure destroyed. The very real impacts of climate change are already hitting so many people in the global south, that issues of loss and damage and financial aid from the global north must surely form part of the discussions between world leaders in this year’s big climate events.  We will of course be here throughout the rest of the season with the help of our very special guests, to bring you all the insights and analysis from these big events.  Notes and Resources    Thank you to our phone guest this week, Henry Dallal!   Henry Dallal | Photographer Website | Instagram   Be sure to check out Henry Dallal’s Book, ‘Addressing Climate Change’   -   Thank you to our musical guest this week, Gabriela Eva!   Gabriela Eva Instagram | Music | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter | Dot Com   Check out Gabriela’s lyric video for ‘Pulling Faces In The Wind’ Be sure to spin ‘Feng Shui’ this weekend!   -   There’s a solar-powered boombox in a park in Queens, NYC that plays LL Cool J’s music from noon to 5p every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and yes it’s 100% real.   -   Listen to Tom’s appearance on our sister-podcast, ‘The Way Out Is In’!   -   We tweet and stuff - @OutrageOptimism Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So here we are! 30 episodes later we have finally arrived at the end of Season 5 of the Outrage + Optimism podcast. And what a rollercoaster it has been for all of us in the global climate community since the start of the year! We are due to take a well-earned break over August before we return with gusto in September for Season 6 - but before we go - in this dynamic episode, we take you on a whistlestop tour of the last six months of the podcast, narrated with a present day lens from our hosts, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac, and Paul Dickinson. We hope you will enjoy revisiting the wisdom and inspiration our guests and hosts offered up over the last six months.  Even though it has often felt we are in dark times, we invite you to draw from these episodes the gritty determination to believe that we have what it takes to move the trajectory we are currently on to a safer, more resilient and just world. To paraphrase the teaching of Thich Naht Hahn that Christiana recalls in her interview with Plum Village: “No mud, no lotuses’. And in true Outrage and Optimism fashion, playing us out is the talented Australian TV weather presenter and musician, Jessica Braithwaite. Jessica contacted the team recently to share her positive feedback and offer us the use of her single ‘Hello (You Got My Heart)’ to play out the final episode of this season. We jumped at the chance and invited her to reflect on what it means to working as a musician (and weather presenter) in an ecological crisis.  We loved her answers - be sure to check out more of her music! Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | TikTok   See you next season! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Crippling heat, fire, and death in the U.K., Europe, and the U.S. are bringing the climate emergency to our literal doorsteps. At the same time, political antipathy一in the lack of climate depth among Britain’s leadership candidates or the collapse of sweeping climate legislation in the U.S., for example一seems to be adding fuel to the fire.  Co-hosts Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson, and especially Christiana Figueres, are outraged! They explore what this means for the climate agenda going forward and, of course, how compassion, inclusion, and optimism must be part of the solution. Will deaths in the streets of Madrid and 40+°C (102°F) temps in the alleys of London compel us to wake up and see what’s happening? Next, how do we use the tools of capitalism without being controlled by them? In this segment the gang explores the differences between traditional and enlightened capital and their connections to poverty, moral imagination, and climate – joined by visionary entrepreneur, philanthropist, and best-selling author Jacqueline Novogratz. Novogratz, described by Forbes as one of the World’s 100 Greatest Living Business Minds (2017), is the head of the global nonprofit impact investment fund Acumen. Novogratz explains, “What is the problem we’re here to solve, and how do we use the tools we have to solve them? Investment has always been [one of those] tools…but we see investment as a means, not as an end in itself.” Listen in as they deconstruct patient capital, off-grid solar, outrage over ongoing divisiveness, and how moral imagination as corporate strategy might just work a little magic for the future.   NOTES AND RESOURCES    Check out more of Gabrielle Sey’s Music here, and be sure to spin her cut of “Patterns” and add it to your summer playlist! Learn more about Acumen and its inspirational founder, Jacqueline Novogratz.  You Can buy Novogratz’s 2020 work “Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: Practices to Build a Better World” here, or in the US, here. You can buy Novogratz’s bestseller, “The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor,” here, or in the US, here. To learn more about our planet’s climate emergency and how you can transform outrage into optimistic action subscribe to the podcast here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With the US Supreme Court's ruling on the EPA still sending shockwaves through some quarters of the climate community, we ask in our second special episode this week: is this a sign that the tide is turning against environmental regulation, or should we be careful not to mistake the tide for the current?  In this episode, co-hosts Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac, and Paul Dickinson take leave of UK politics (in the most part) and take a look across the ‘puddle’ at what many have described as the devastating ruling delivered by the US Supreme Court on the EPA’s power to regulate green house gas emissions.  We hear from two very special guests, Gina McCarthy former EPA administrator and now the first National Climate Advisor to the White House, and John Podesta, the founder and chair of the Board of Directors for the Center for American Progress, and former counselor to President Barack Obama.   NOTES AND RESOURCES  Have you enjoyed listening to this new format of Outrage + Optimism? We have had great fun making these last two episodes so as Tom suggests in the show, let us know what you think by dropping us an email at contact@globaloptimism.com.   Christiana + Tom’s book ‘The Future We Choose’ is available now!   Gina McCarthy Twitter   John Podesta Twitter | Website   To learn more about the climate emergency and how you can translate outrage into action, subscribe to the podcast here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.