The 2010s witnessed a sharp uptick in nonviolent resistance movements all across the globe. Over the course of the last decade we’ve seen record numbers of popular protests, grassroots campaigns, and civic demonstrations advancing causes that range from toppling dictatorial regimes to ending factory farming to advancing a Green New Deal.  So, I thought it would be fitting to kick off 2020 by bringing on Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard specializing in nonviolent resistance. At the beginning of this decade Chenoweth co-authored Why Civil Resistance Works, a landmark study showing that nonviolent movements are twice as effective as violent ones. Since then, she has written dozens of papers on what factors make successful movements successful, why global protests are becoming more and more common, how social media has affected resistance movements and much more. But Chenoweth doesn’t only study nonviolent movements from an academic perspective; she also advises nonviolent movement leaders around the world (including former EK Show guests Varshini Prakash of the Sunrise Movement and Wayne Hsiung of Direct Action Everywhere) to help them be as effective and strategic as possible in carrying out their goals. This on-the-ground experience combined with a big-picture, academic view of nonviolent resistance makes her perspective essential for understanding one of the most important phenomena of the last decade -- and, in all likelihood, the next one.References: "How social media helps dictators" by Erica Chenoweth"Drop Your Weapons: When and Why Civil Resistance Works" by Erica ChenowethBook recommendations: These Truths by Jill LeporeNonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark KurlanskyFrom #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keenga-Yamahtta TaylorIf you enjoyed this podcast, you may also like: Varshini Prakash on the Sunrise Movement's plan to save humanity When doing the right thing makes you a criminal (with Wayne Hsiung) My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldEngineer- Cynthia GilResearcher - Roge Karma Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s here. The final AMA of 2019. Among the questions you asked:- If you believe that changing someone's mind about a topic, any topic is difficult, how do you function as a journalist?- What’s your opinion on capitalism?- What have you learned about yourself since being a dad that has surprised you the most?- You talk a lot about polarization. But it seems your audience leans liberal. So how do you reconcile that?- Do you believe in free will?- What’s your take on the left/liberal divide?- Red wine or white wine?- We know 2020 will come down to a small collection of swing states. Shouldn’t the Democrats just run whichever candidate will be strongest in those states?- What’s with Vox and NBER papers?- What would get journalists to leave Twitter?- What happens if Trump loses the election but refuses to leave office?All this, plus you get to hear from the mysterious Jeff Geld…My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer, Editor, Guest Interviewer - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaEngineer - Cynthia Gil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here, at the end of the year, I wanted to share one of my favorite episodes of 2019 with you.Earlier this year, two essays on America’s changing relationship to work caught my eye. The first was Anne Helen Petersen’s viral BuzzFeed piece defining, and describing, “millennial burnout.” The second was Derek Thompson’s Atlantic article on “workism.”The two pieces speak to each other in interesting ways, and to some questions I had been reflecting on as my own relationship to work changes. So I asked the authors to join me for a conversation about what happens when work becomes an identity, capitalism becomes a religion, and productivity becomes the way we measure human value. The conversation exceeded even the high hopes I had for it. Enjoy this one.Book recommendations:Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm HarrisWhite: Essays on Race and Culture by Richard DyerThe Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900-1914 by Philipp BlomA Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer EganNew to the show? Want to listen to Ezra's favorite episodes? Check out The Ezra Klein Show beginner's guide.My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldEngineers - Cynthia Gil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dave Roberts is an energy and climate writer at Vox and a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. He started as his career covering climate science and clean energy technology, but -- for reasons we discuss here -- he now writes just as much about political psychology, media ecosystems, political institutions, and how they intersect with climate change. We cover a lot in this conversation, including: “Tribal epistemology,” and why it’s crucial to climate paralysis  How the GOP went from the party of cap-and-trade to the party of climate denial  Why the right and left-wing media ecosystem’s diverged so dramatically What today’s climate activists get right about our politics that their predecessors got wrong The carbon tax dead-end How nuclear energy became so divisive The conflicting moral and social visions at the heart of the climate movement  Why it is impossible to separate technological innovation from the policy ecosystem that shapes it  Whether climate change really is an “existential” threat  What climate change will mean for the world’s poor References: Dave Roberts on America's "epistemic crisis." Book recommendations: Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston"State of the Species" by Charles C. MannMy book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Submit questions for our upcoming "Ask Me Anything" at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaEngineers - Cynthia Gil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Most analyses of how to “solve” climate change start from a single, crucial assumption: that carbon emissions and global warming are inextricably linked. Geoengineering is a set of technologies and ideas with the potential to shatter that link. Can we use them? Should we? Could they be used in concert with other solutions, or would simply opening the door drain support from those ideas? Even if we did want to deploy geoengineering, who would govern its use? And is mucking with the earth at this level more dangerous than climate change itself — which may, ultimately, be the choice we face?Jane Flegal is a geoengineering expert at Arizona State University and a program officer at the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust. She’s able to parse this debate with an unusual level of clarity, fairness, and rigor. This isn’t an argument for or against geoengineering. It’s a way to think about it, and that turns out to be a way to think about the climate change problem as a whole.Book recommendations: The Planet Remade by Oliver MortonExperiment Earth by Jack StilgoeFrontiers of Illusion by Daniel Sarewitz My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Submit questions for our upcoming "Ask Me Anything" at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaEngineers - Cynthia Gil & Ed Cuervo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The climate series is back! The reason for the delay is that I wanted to make sure that this episode was next up in the series. Once you start listening, you’ll understand why. So far, we’ve spent the series talking about the problem we're facing and what the world will ultimately look like if we fail. Today’s conversation is different: It is about what it will take to solve climate change and what kind of world we can build if we succeed. Saul Griffith is an inventor, a MacArthur genius fellow, and the founder and CEO of Otherlab, a high-tech research and development company on the frontlines of trying to imagine our clean energy future. Griffith and his team were contracted by the Department of Energy to track and visualize the entirety of America’s energy flows — and as a result, he knows the US energy system better than just about anyone on this planet. Griffith is also clearer than anyone else I’ve found on the paths to decarbonization, and how to navigate them.Most conversations about climate change are pretty depressing. This conversation is not. We have the tools we need to decarbonize. What’s more, decarbonizing doesn’t mean accepting a future of less — it can mean a more awesome, humane, technologically rich, and socially inspiring future for us all. This conversation is about a vision of decarbonization that is genuinely awesome, and how we can actually get there.References: Otherlab's diagram of US energy flowsGriffith's piece on paths to decarbonizationBook recommendations: Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David GraeberFreedom's Forge by Arthur HermanThe Extinction Rebellion Handbook Silent Spring by Rachel CarsonMy book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.The first batch of stops for my book tour is up! Get tickets at http://www.whywerepolarized.comSubmit questions for our upcoming "Ask Me Anything" at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaEngineer - Cynthia Gil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s cliché to call podcasts wide-ranging. But this conversation, with Nobel-prize winning economist and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman, really is. A sample of what we discuss:- How economists mucked up the climate debate- What a Democratic president should pass first- The politics and policy of Medicare-for-all- Krugman’s three-part test to determine whether a program needs to be paid for (don’t miss this!)- Why Pete Buttigieg is wrong on tuition-free college - Why Andrew Yang is wrong on automation- What the Obama administration got wrong, and right, in the financial crisis- The means-testing vs. universal program debate is a false dichotomy - What it would take to revitalize the economies of middle and rural America- The productivity puzzle- The antitrust problem- Geographic inequality- Whether elite or mass opinion is the key constraint on policy ambition- Path dependence in social welfare states- Whether private insurers should exist And much more. Don’t miss this one.References: Krugman's upcoming book, Arguing with Zombies Book recommendations: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume Plagues and Peoples by William McNeil Collected essays of George OrwellMy book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Submit questions for our upcoming "Ask Me Anything" at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaEngineer - Cynthia Gil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After creating and running Parks and Recreation and writing for The Office, Michael Schur decided he wanted to create a sitcom about one of the most fundamental questions of human existence: What does it mean to be a good person? That’s how The Good Place was born.Soon into the show’s writing, Schur realized he was in way over his head. The question of human morality is one of the most complicated and hotly contested subjects of all time. He needed someone to help him out. So, he recruited Pamela Hieronymi, a professor at UCLA specializing in the subjects of moral responsibility, psychology, and free will, to join the show as a “consulting philosopher” — surely a first in sitcom history.I wanted to bring Shur and Hieronymi onto the show because The Good Place should not exist. Moral philosophy is traditionally the stuff of obscure academic journals and undergraduate seminars, not popular television. Yet, three-and-a-half seasons on, The Good Place is not only one of the funniest sitcoms on TV, it has popularized academic philosophy in an unprecedented fashion and put forward its own highly sophisticated moral vision.This is a conversation about how and why The Good Place exists and what it reflects about The Odd Place in which we actually live. Unlike a lot of conversations about moral philosophy, this one is a lot of fun.References: Dylan Matthews' brilliant profile on The Good Place Dylan Matthews on why he donated his kidney Book recommendations: Michael Schur:Ordinary Vices by Judith N. ShklarThe Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré Beloved by Toni MorrisonPamela Hieronymi:What We Owe to Each Other by T.M. ScanlonBeing and Nothingness by Jean-Paul SartreMortal Questions by Thomas NagelNew to the show? Want to listen to Ezra's favorite episodes? Check out The Ezra Klein Show beginner's guide.My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Submit questions for our upcoming "Ask Me Anything" at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaEngineer - Cynthia Gil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For most of his life, Wayne Hsiung was a typical overachiever. He attended the University of Chicago, started his PhD in Economics, became a law professor at Northwestern, was mentored by Cass Sunstein. But then, something snapped. In the midst of a deep, overwhelming depression, Hsiung visited a slaughterhouse and was radicalized by the immense suffering he saw. He now faces decades in prison for rescuing sick, injured animals from slaughterhouses.Hsiung is the founder of Direct Action Everywhere, an organization best known for conducting public, open rescues of animals too sick for slaughter. These rescues are, in many cases, illegal, and Hsiung and his fellow activists are risking years of imprisonment. But the sacrifice is the point: Hsiung and his colleagues are trying to highlight the sickness of a society that criminalizes doing what any child would recognize as the right thing to do.In our conversation, I wanted to understand a simple question: How did he get here? What leads someone with a safe, comfortable life to risk everything for a cause? What does society look like to him now, knowing what he faces? And the big question: Is Hsiung the weird one? Or is it all of us — who see so much suffering and injustice and simply go about our lives — who have lost our way?References: New York Times story on a DxE rescue mission Video of the mission to save Lily the piglet Book recommendations:Everything is Obvious by Duncan J. Watts The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor DostoevskyGrit by Angela DuckworthMy book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaEngineer - Jeremy Dalmas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Imagine you’re walking to work. You see a child drowning in a lake. You’re about to jump in and save her when you realize you’re wearing your best suit, and the rescue will end up costing hundreds in dry cleaning bills. Should you still save the child?Of course you should. But this simple thought experiment, taken seriously, has radical implications for how you live your life.It comes from Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save, one of the most influential modern works of ethical philosophy. Singer is perhaps the most influential public intellectual of my lifetime. His book Animal Liberation helped build America’s animal rights movement. His work helped create the effective altruism movement.In Singer’s hands, the questions that motivate a moral life are startlingly simple. But if you take them seriously, living morally is very, very hard. And the way most of us are living, right now — well, we’re letting a lot of children drown. What happens if we force ourselves to recognize that fact? What does it demand of us?That’s the topic of my conversation with Singer. We also discuss the differences between ethical philosophy and religion, why moral reasoning is a social act, the ethics of caring most about those closest to you, The Good Place, AI risk, open borders, where our obligations to others end, why Singer wouldn’t have become a philosopher if he’d been an effective altruist in his youth, and much more.Book recommendations: On Liberty by John Stuart MillThe Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven PinkerOn What Matters by Derek ParfitReasons and Persons by Derek ParfitTo read Peter SInger's book please visit www.thelifeyoucansave.orgTo learn more about effective altruism, visit Vox's Future PerfectMy book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge KarmaEngineers - Cynthia Gil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices