The Colorado River supplies water to more than 40 million people across seven states. Lake Mead has fallen to its lowest level since it was filled in the 1930s, which could trigger the first stage of real water cutbacks.For years, “much of the discussion in the Colorado River Basin has been who gets the next drop,” says journalist Luke Runyon. “The conversation very recently has shifted to who has to use less.”In the midst of long-term drought, warming temperatures and decreasing runoff, water managers are gearing up for the next round of negotiations to divvy up the Colorado River’s supply in the future. Tribal water users are hoping to have a bigger say in those basin-wide negotiations, and to finally correct an historic injustice by ensuring universal access to clean water for tribes.Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our work. Go to climateone.org/donate to help us reach our goal of $10,000 by July 1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever have a difficult conversation about climate? Pretty much everyone has. Knowing all the facts and figures only goes so far when talking to someone who just doesn’t agree. So how do we break through the barriers? Scientists trained to present information in a one-way lecture format face a particular challenge: they first need to unlearn old habits.“Everybody's trying to figure out ‘how do we move past this idea that just arming people with facts will lead to a better world,’ right, because we’ve just seen that that’s absolutely not true,” says Faith Kearns, author of Getting to the Heart of Science Communication. Kearns argues that we all need to move from an “information deficit” model of communication – where it’s assumed that the audience simply needs more information – to a relational model, where the science communicator does as much listening as talking in order to first find empathy and common ground. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If corporations can be legal persons, why can’t Mother Earth? In 2017, New Zealand granted the Whanganui River the full legal rights of a person. India also recently granted full legal rights to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, and recognized that the Himalayan Glaciers have a right to exist. In 2019, the city of Toledo passed the Lake Erie Bill of Rights with 61 percent of the vote, but then a year later, a federal judge struck it down.As Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, an attorney who represented Lake Erie, explains, the problem stems from a 500-year history of Western property law. Our legal system grants rights to property owners, but not to property itself. “If we’re treating ecosystems as property, then ultimately, we as property owners have the right to destroy our property and that fundamentally has to change,” Schromen-Wawrin says.Rebecca Tsosie, a law professor focused on Federal Indian law and Indigenous peoples’ human rights, says there are other rights frameworks to consider. “If we go into Indigenous epistemology, many times it’s a relational universe that comes with mutual responsibility.”Guests:Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin, attorney at Shearwater Law, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund Rebecca Tsosie, Regents Professor of Law at the University of Arizona, Indigenous Peoples’ Law and Policy ProgramCarol Van Strum, author of A Bitter Fog, activist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mapping has emerged as a powerful tool for helping humans combat climate disruption. Technology for measuring the totality of global carbon emissions, for example, is highly refined: we know that half of all the carbon pollution humans have dumped into the sky has happened in just the last three decades. But understanding the specific sources of those emissions at the scale of factories or communities has been more elusive. Riley Duren, CEO of Carbon Mapper, has said, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Carbon Mapper, a public-private partnership that includes universities and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and is backed by philanthropists, uses satellites to pinpoint super emitters of both CO2 and methane in real time with the goal of reducing emissions.But this isn’t the only technology that may point the way toward a better understanding of climate threats and potential solutions. The Catholic Church, for example, holds vast tracts of land across the globe. But until Molly Burhans came on the scene, the Vatican had no real understanding of what they own. Burhans founded her nonprofit mapping organization Goodlands to provide the Church with the tools to use their landholdings to address issues ranging from erosion and biodiversity loss to climate migration. On the local level, Ariane Middel’s research uses a human-sized mobile weather station to look at variations in actual heat on the ground, chronicling how small differences in landscape and urban design can add up to major differences in heat impacts experienced by those who live and work in various built environments.Guests:Molly Burhans, Founder / Executive Director, GoodLandsRiley Duren, CEO, Carbon Mapper  Ariane Middel, Senior Sustainability Scientist, Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What motivates the activists? Grassroots activism can take many forms, from protests to letter-writing to citizen science to community organizing. But these often more local forms of activism can get short shrift compared to the more powerful, national players in climate and environmental movements.Nick Mullins, a former fifth-generation coal miner, grew up seeing multiple generations of his family endure hardships created by our nation’s demand for cheap coal. In search of decent pay, he became a miner himself – but he eventually left the industry in search of justice for his mountain communities. James Coleman started his career as a teenage climate activist before becoming the youngest elected public official in California in over 100 years. San Francisco activist Marie Harrison fought against environmental contamination of her community by the U.S. Navy and a fossil-fuel-burning power plant – and now her daughter, Arieann Harrison, has picked up her mantle to continue pushing for environmental justice.  Mullins, Coleman, and dozens of activists featured in Audrea Lim’s book The World We Need, Stories and Lessons from America’s Unsung Environmental Movement represent just a fraction of those motivated to take action on climate. “The thing about grassroots activism, actually, apart from the stereotype is that it’s really just people in a community who see a problem and then they get together on their own and try to find a solution to it,” says Audrea Lim.What can grassroots activists do that national organizations can’t? And what can their stories and experiences teach us?Guests:Nick Mullins, former fifth-generation coal miner, blogger, Thoughts of a Coal MinerAudrea Lim, Journalist & Editor, The World We Need, Stories and Lessons from America’s Unsung Environmental MovementJames Coleman, City Councilor, South San Francisco Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do our identities and values shape the way we listen to others’ climate experience? Author Nathaniel Rich and journalist Meera Subramanian cover the hopes, fears, and middle-of-the-night concerns affecting the people living closest to climate change. In Georgia, farmers were convinced that climate is a political issue — until too-warm winters began upending the Peach State’s prized crop. In a wealthy Los Angeles suburb, an invisible methane gas leak caused outrage and hysteria for local residents concerned about personal health and property values — but not the climate.“I think we've all gotten really used to telling our stories, putting them out there in the world, and it sometimes feels like maybe not so many people are actually listening to them,” Subramanian says. “And so I think sometimes showing up as a journalist and just being all ears can feel kind of profound.”Guests:Nathaniel Rich, Author, Losing Earth; Second NatureMeera Subramanian, Environmental JournalistHave you ever had a difficult conversation about climate? A disagreement, perhaps, or coming to terms with a new reality? We’d like to hear your stories. Please call (650) 382-3869 and leave us a voicemail about your toughest climate conversation. Or drop us a line at climateone@gmail.com. We may use your story in an upcoming episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the US, we’ve become accustomed to climate – like nearly everything else – being politicized. Even when potential solutions might benefit everyone, a zero-sum mentality has taken hold where there’s an “us” and a “them” and progress for them comes at the expense of us. “Racism in our politics and policymaking is distorting our ability to respond to big problems and to advance collective solutions,” says political strategist Heather McGhee. But does it have to be this way? Can we look to the UK and elsewhere for a different model? Is it even possible to make the whole planet a winner?Guests:Heather McGhee, Political Strategist & Author, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together Rebecca Willis, Researcher & Author, Too Hot to Handle? The Democratic Challenge of Climate ChangeWe have been nominated for a Webby!Please give us your vote as the Best Science and Education Limited Series in the 25th Annual People's Voice Award below:https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2021/podcasts/limited-series-specials/science-education Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guests:Tamara Conry, Camp Fire survivor Julia Fay Bernal, director of Pueblo Action Alliance Britt Wray, postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University focused on the intersection of mental health and the climate crisisThe impacts of climate change may come fast or slow. A wildfire amplified by drought may rip through a town in a matter of hours, or rising seas may take years to destroy a neighborhood. Health impacts may show up in months, or take the form of devastating cancer rates that rise over a decade. Regardless of speed or intensity, the climate emergency will impact us all. How do we live alongside climate disruption?This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.Related Links:Pueblo Action AllianceEco-anxiety and Gen DreadWe have been nominated for a Webby!Please give us your vote as the Best Science and Education Limited Series in the 25th Annual People's Voice Award below:https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2021/podcasts/limited-series-specials/science-education Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many of us, the story of the American wilderness begins when Europeans arrived on these shores and began conquering it. The wide open spaces of the American West loom large in our country’s mythology. But what often gets written out is the history and culture of those native societies who were here to begin with — and whose relationship to this land is very different. And while one-percenters have contributed generously to preserve and protect the pristine wilderness they love, the people who work for them are often struggling, working two or three jobs. How are public and private land interests competing in the American West? Can conservation and recreation coalesce in a way that is inclusive of all communities?Guests:Dina Gilio-Whitaker, American Indian Studies Lecturer, California State University San MarcosJustin Farrell, Author, Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West (Princeton University Press, 2020)Diane Regas, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Trust for Public LandJessica Newton, Founder, Vibe Tribe Adventures For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speakers:Julian Brave NoiseCat, Vice President of Policy and Strategy, Data for Progress Julie Pullen, Director of Product, Jupiter Intelligence Alicia Seiger, Managing Director, Sustainable Finance Initiative, Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford UniversityThe COVID-19 shutdown has hit women and minorities hardest: four times as many women as men dropped out of the workforce in September 2020, with Latina and Black women seeing the highest levels of unemployment.The Biden Administration’s COVID recovery plans promise to prioritize climate and equity alongside economic growth—can those values carry over to a post-pandemic workforce that doesn’t leave anyone behind? “The solutions to climate expand far beyond simple carbon math,” says Alicia Seiger of Stanford University. How will climate resilience be built into America's economic recovery?Related Links:The American Rescue PlanData for ProgressJupiter IntelligencePrecourt Institute for EnergyThe All We Can Save ProjectWaterfront Alliance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices