In This Climate

Host Gabe Filippelli talks with Paul Harvey about his book and project Plasticology, microplastics in the environment, and how we can deal with our legacy of plastics pollution—which, like most things, is a climate problem.

In this episode, host Gabe Filippelli talks with Laurate Professor Ravi Naidu at the University of Newcastle about environmental contamination, emerging issues, and how to work with industries in a constructive way to help solve environmental problems. 

As institutions of higher education aim to prepare students of sustainability and support environmental research, what are we missing? And what does it take to turn our knowledge of chemistry and physics into new ways of relating with the earth? In this episode, Lissy Goralnik and Laurie Thorp of Michigan State University share what they've learned through teaching with contemplative practices.

We've been talking a lot about ecological anxiety and grief, vague and muddy feelings that they are. In this episode, climate emotions researcher Panu Pihkala helps us name and explore what these wide terms hold. An insightful episode from Panu's new podcast: https://climatechangeandhappiness.com/episodes/episode-03-eco-anxiety-demystified

We talk with Ashlee Cunsolo, founding dean of the School of Arctic and Subarctic Studies at the Labrador Campus of Memorial University, about the connective capacity of grief, the role of land in Inuit mental health research, and the relationship between agency and letting go. Ashlee's site: https://ashleecunsolo.ca/

While we're not in the business of pathologizing feelings toward our changing environment, we recognize those emotions can be difficult to work with. So, in this episode, Leslie Davenport helps us understand what climate-aware therapy is, why it matters, and how we can tend the interactions between our brains and the structures in which we exist. Leslie's website: https://lesliedavenport.com/

What if the science story and the emotion story are the same story? What could we do if we were to deconstruct the dualism of feeling and acting? In this episode, Sarah Jaquette Ray and Jennifer Atkinson walk us through their research on and experience with climate feelings, from grief to guilt to hope. We work on understanding how we can engage with emotions together to help us get into ever-better relationship with each other and the earth. Sarah Jaquette Ray's reflection on The Unbearable Whiteness of Climate Anxiety: https://gendread.substack.com/p/sarah-jaquette-ray-on-the-unbearable?utm_source=url&s=r Jennifer Atkinson's Facing It podcast: https://www.drjenniferatkinson.com/facing-it 

In this episode, Jim talks with Michael Hamburger, a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, about the letter that Concerned Scientists at Indiana University-Bloomington recently sent to University admonistrators. It includes requests for a formal climate action plan and an implementation planning taskforce of diverse stakeholders. We reached out to IU Director of Media Relations Chuck Carney for comment and received a statement, which Jim reads at the end of the episode.

Stephanie Kaza—a long-time lover of trees, practicing Zen Buddhist, and environmentalist—walks us through some of the teachings and practices of Zen Buddhism that can help us get into right relationship with the earth and ourselves, which as we learn, are not one and not two.

In this series, we ask, how can spiritual connection with our environment help us enter into right and restorative relationship with the earth, including human and nonhuman inhabitants? In this episode, we ask James Keys about his experience and study of wonder, about the many ways we can access, experience, and use this emotion.