A Matter of Degrees

This episode is a collaboration between A Matter Of Degrees and the Gimlet podcast How To Save A Planet.Coal-fired power plants are closing at record rates. But many are still scheduled to remain operational for the foreseeable future -- despite losing lots of money every year.How do we shut these uneconomic coal plants down faster? One answer: coal debt securitization.Coal debt securitization is like refinancing a mortgage. States across the country are considering policies that would make it easier for owners of coal-fired power plants to restructure their debt.In this episode, A Matter Of Degrees Host Leah Stokes and How To Save A Planet Host Alex Blumberg team up to explore how securitization would work -- and why utilities are getting behind it.This episode features Ashok Gupta, a Senior Energy economist for the Natural Resources Defense Council and Jason Klindt, the Senior Director Of Government Affairs for Evergy. Follow our co-hosts and production team: Leah Stokes Katharine Wilkinson Stephen Lacey Jaime Kaiser Dalvin Aboagye A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio. For more episodes, visit our website.

Since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed in 2015, banks and large investors have dumped $3.8 trillion into fossil fuels.It's a staggering number. This is why writer and activist Bill McKibben calls money the "oxygen" that fuels the fire of global warming. While the wildfires burning around the world are getting worse each year, it’s like the world's bankers are blowing on those fires, making them even bigger.For this episode, we have a story about two people who are trying to cut off that supply of oxygen to global lenders and the insurance companies backing them. It comes from our executive editor, Stephen Lacey.We’ll hear from Ulf Erlandsson, founder and chief executive of a non-profit called the Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute. Ulf is a former bond trader who calls out deals in corporate and government lending that would be a disaster for the climate. He’s helping bond traders “short” these bad investments.We’ll also hear from Elana Sulakshana, an energy finance campaigner with the Rainforest Action Network, about why insurance companies are enabling trillions of dollars to pour into new fossil fuel infrastructure. Resources: Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute Stop the Money Pipeline Banking on Climate Chaos report Insure Our Future climate scorecard Follow our co-hosts and production team: Leah Stokes Katharine Wilkinson Stephen Lacey Jaime Kaiser Dalvin Aboagye A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio. For more episodes, visit our website.

Advocates are turning their attention to a new front in the climate war: the fossil-gas hookups in our homes that fuel burners, boilers, and other household appliances.If we want to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we need to electrify the hundreds of millions of machines inside our homes and buildings as fast as possible. But the gas industry won’t go down without a fight.Gas industry front groups are infiltrating neighborhood groups, hiring social media influencers, and barraging citizens with messages in order to stir up controversy around local bans on new fossil gas connections. That’s exactly what happened to the residents of Santa Barbara, California last year. This week, we'll hear from activists, reporters, and industry professionals who are following the gas industry’s battle to keep fossil fuels in our homes. How far will gas companies go to stop electrification? And where does the electrification movement stand?Leah Stokes speaks with Sierra Club's Santa Barbara Chapter Chair Katie Davis; EarthJustice Senior Attorney Matt Vespa; Earther Staff Writer Dharna Noor; and Former BlocPower Senior Strategist Associate Rose Stephens-Booker.Resources: RMI research on the dangers of gas stoves Dharna Noor on why gas is so problematic in our homes Saul Griffith on electrifying everything, starting now Follow our co-hosts and production team: Leah Stokes Katharine Wilkinson Stephen Lacey Jaime Kaiser Dalvin Aboagye A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio. For more episodes and transcripts, visit our website.

When Hurricanes Maria and Irma hit Puerto Rico in 2017, they destroyed the island’s fragile food system. Farms of all sizes were battered, with around 80 percent of the island's crop value wiped out.But a group of Puerto Rican farmers practicing an old way of farming, called agroecology, saw their operations bounce back much faster than conventional farms. What does their experience tell us about how to build and protect food systems in a rapidly warming world?Producer Dalvin Aboagye brings us a story about a collective known as Guakia in Puerto Rico working to clean up the food system as a part of a larger worldwide movement to adapt farms to local ecosystems. We’ll also talk to an expert about how agroecology works as a climate solution. At scale, agroecology could help us shrink the 24 percent share of global emissions attributed to food, agriculture, and land use. And it's an important line of defense in protecting our ability to feed people as extreme weather makes food systems more vulnerable. Resources: Puerto Rico’s agroecology revolution after Maria Agroecology’s impact on European emissions Follow our co-hosts and production team: Leah Stokes Katharine Wilkinson Stephen Lacey Jaime Kaiser A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio. For more episodes and transcripts, visit our website.

President Biden’s American Jobs Plan promises big investments in the clean-energy economy, including clean energy workforce and education programs. Economic progress and clean climate action are inextricably linked. But how can we make sure that those dollars go to communities of color who have already been most impacted by climate change and consistently shut out of past federal programs promising transformational change? And to gender minorities who are underrepresented in certain green fields?This week, we hear from folks in government, the nonprofit sector, the renewable energy space and academia about what it will really take to usher in a just transition.Katharine Wilkinson speaks with solar entrepreneur Bob Blake; The Partnership for Southern Equity’s Chandra Farley; New Jersey Deputy Secretary For Higher Education Diana Gonzalez; and Brooking Institute Fellow Christina Kwauk.Resources: More on Bob Blake’s Company, Solar Bear The Partnership for Southern Equity More about Diana Gonzalez and her work in NJ Christina Kwauk’s Green Learning Agenda Christina’s ‘Education Moonshot’ Plan Follow our co-hosts and production team: Leah Stokes Katharine Wilkinson Stephen Lacey Jaime Kaiser A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio. For more episodes and transcripts, visit our website.

Abuse of soil, the atmosphere, and communities of color have gone hand in hand. Through reclaiming ancestral connection to the soil, Black farmers are healing the entangled harms of colonization, capitalism, and White supremacy and moving agricultural climate solutions forward in the process. In this episode, we feature an audio essay that wrestles with these themes. The essay is titled “Black Gold” by Leah Penniman, an activist, farmer, and founder of Soul Fire Farm. As Leah puts it: “In healing our relationship with soil, we heal the climate, and we heal ourselves.”This is an excerpt from the audiobook version of All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, an anthology of essays, poetry, and art co-edited by Katharine Wilkinson and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.The audiobook version of this essay is read by award-winning audiobook narrator Bahni Turpin. Resources: Order your copy of All We Can Save here RSVP for the All We Can Save paperback book launch Follow our co-hosts and production team: Leah Stokes Katharine Wilkinson Stephen Lacey Jaime Kaiser A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio. For more episodes and transcripts, visit our website.

Baked into the American Jobs Plan is an ambitious proposal to set a federally-mandated Clean Electricity Standard of 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035. It would put the US on track to get emissions under control and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. That is, if it gets through Congress. In this episode, Co-host Leah Stokes speaks with a variety of guests who are part of the broad coalition supporting the proposal. What would this ambitious policy mean for America's energy system and climate movement?The episode features Jamie DeMarco and Quentin Scott from Chesapeake Climate Action Network; Lauren Maunus from The Sunrise Movement; Hip Hop Caucus CEO Rev. Lennox Yearwood; and West Virginia Rivers Coalition Director Angie Rossers. Resources: The #Call4Climate homepage Chesapeake Climate Action Network Homepage  The Data For Progress Poll Results on Voter Support for a CES Follow our co-hosts and production team: Leah Stokes Katharine Wilkinson Stephen Lacey Jaime Kaiser A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio. For more episodes and transcripts, visit our website.

Fossil fuel companies are tapping into America’s “best and brightest” at top banks, public relations and advertising firms, law firms, and strategy consulting firms.These organizations supply critical services to keep the fossil fuel industry humming: creative work, strategy, legal representation, financing. They’re services that oil and gas companies need to remain powerful.In this episode (our first of the second season!) Dr. Katharine Wilkinson and Dr. Leah Stokes explore the different ways this “prestige problem” influences America’s white-collar workforce. And they’ll explore efforts to push back.Katharine speaks with Camila Bustos, the co-founder of Law Students for Climate Accountability. She also speaks with Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media.Resources: Law Students for Climate Accountability scorecard NY Times: How One Firm Drove Influence Campaigns Nationwide for Big Oil DeSmog: The Climate-Conflicted Directors Leading the World’s Top Banks Follow our co-hosts and production team: Leah Stokes Katharine Wilkinson Stephen Lacey Jaime Kaiser A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio. For more episodes and transcripts, visit our website.

We're back with another live edition of the show! So much is happening in the Biden era. We didn't want to wait until our second season to unpack all the activity.This week, we feature a conversation with Julian Brave NoiseCat that we recorded at the Crosscut Festival. Julian is a writer, activist, and policy expert with a deep understanding of Washington climate politics. Julian was actually a guest correspondent in season one — go episode 7 from our first season: “Changing Woman: One Navajo’s Fight for a Just Transition."The protagonist of amazing episode, Wahleah Johns, is now working in the Biden Administration as a senior official at the Department of Energy!Julian is the Vice President of Policy & Strategy at the think tank Data For Progress and a Fellow at the Type Media Center. He’s also a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Vox, Vice and many other outlets.In this episode, we look at all the action happening in Washington on climate change: big-name hires, big-ticket policies, and the potential high-impact outcomes.

As we work on season 2, we're sharing a live episode of the show that we just recorded at the Bloomberg Green Summit.The conversation is all about where things stand in the lead-up to global climate talks in the fall. We were fortunate to get Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland, to talk about this topic with us. Mary served as the President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. She’s now the chair of the Elders.Mary has dedicated much of her career to solving the climate crisis. She’s the author of two moving memoirs, “Everybody Matters” which was from 2012 and “Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience and the Fight for a Sustainable Future,” was published in September 2018. She is also co-host of a podcast on the climate crisis, called “Mothers of Invention.” In this episode, we go deep with Mary on what we can expect from this year's international climate negotiations.