The Climate Pod

On this installment of our series, The Road To COP26 Presented By Octopus Energy, we kickoff our two week special coverage of COP26 in Glasgow with Time Magazine's Justin Worland, senior correspondent covering climate change, about what to expect from this year's critical United Nation's conference on climate change. Justin explains the biggest issues on the table at this year's negotiations, why this year's conference is a big test for multilateralism, and what it's like to be in Glasgow during the meetings. He also talks about his recent piece "The Diplomat: John Kerry Brings America Back To The Climate Fight" and what COP26 could mean for the legacy of the US Special Presidential Envoy on Climate. Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel also react to COP26 President Alok Sharma's kickoff press conference and discuss the stakes for world leaders as they gather for the opening days as the conference begins with a rocky start.  Subscribe to Time Magazine's Climate Newsletter Thank you to our sponsor Octopus Energy, a 100% renewable electricity supplier. Octopus Energy is currently serving millions of homes around the globe in countries like the United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand, and Germany.  Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/ As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our new YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group. Check out our updated website! Further Reading: The COP26 Climate Talks Are Opening. Here’s What to Expect. Climate finance for poor countries to hit $100bn target by 2023, says report Bad weather causes delays on train routes to Glasgow Cop26 talks  

We're mixing it up for this episode to celebrate our favorite spooky holiday with an exceptional guest that gives us the very real climate-related inspiration behind Mary Shelley's classic Frankenstein. Dr. Michael Wysession, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, talks about his 2018 essay "Frankenstein Meets Climate Change: Monsters of Our Own Making" and explains how not only was the story influenced by a brief period of extreme climate change, but it also provides many parallels to the climate crisis we’re facing today. Listen to last year's Halloween episode "Sea Fever" Is A Nightmare Climate Allegory (w/ Director Neasa Hardiman) Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/ As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our new YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group. Check out our updated website!

On this installment of our series, The Road To COP26 Presented By Octopus Energy, Dr. Jane Goodall, the legendary primatologist and anthropologist, joins the show to discuss why she wanted to serve as a COP26 Advocate, how everyone can get involved to fight climate change and the destruction of the natural world, and what she's learned over the course of her life and work that gives her hope for a better future. Dr. Goodall is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the organization Roots & Shoots. Most recently, she is the author of The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times. Thank you to our sponsor Octopus Energy, a 100% renewable electricity supplier. Octopus Energy is currently serving millions of homes around the globe in countries like the United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand, and Germany.  Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/ As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our new YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group. Check out our updated website!

How did our ancestors handle catastrophic changes to their climate? Brian Fagan has been researching that very question for decades. As one of the world’s leading archaeological writers and recognized authorities on world prehistory, he has put together several great works on ancient climate change including the New York Times bestseller The Great Warming. Now, he's co-authored a new book Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors with Cambridge University-trained archaeologist and writer Nadia Durrani. In this conversation with Fagan, we explore how ancient civilizations - from the Roman Emperors to Egyptian Pharaohs and many more - dealt with extreme environmental shifts and why climate change caused so many civilizations to eventually collapse. We explore the droughts, volcanoes, glacial melts, and other climate calamities that felled once-mighty civilizations and what we can learn from their example to lead us in our decisions today. Brian Fagan is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Buy Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/ As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our new YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group. 

This week, Saul Griffith joins the show to talk about his new book Electrify: An Optimists Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future. Saul is the co-founder and Chief Scientist of Rewiring America, a non-profit dedicated to widespread electrification and decarbonization. We discuss how replacing or adding just a handful of products in our homes and our businesses can help transform and decarbonize our electricity grid, making us all healthier and saving us money at the same time. Brock and Ty also discuss the "People vs. Fossil Fuels" protests happening in front of the White House. Check out Rewiring America Check out Saul's Sankey diagram of America's energy use Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/ As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our new YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group. 

This week, we look into the future of decarbonizing transportation with two great writers featured in National Geographic's October cover story on the issue. First, Craig Welch talks about his piece “The Future of Driving is here - and it's Electric”  that examines the car industry and how quickly the electric vehicle market is developing all around the world. Second, Sam Howe Verhovek joined the show to discuss his article "How Green Can We Make Air Travel? And How Soon?" Sam outlines the problems the airline industry is facing as it tries to decarbonize and the future technologies that might hold the key. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/ As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our new YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.   

This week, we take a deep dive into how climate change is exacerbating extreme droughts and accelerating wildfires with bioclimatologist Park Williams. Dr. Williams is an associate professor at UCLA's Department of Geography. His particular expertise in the causes and consequences of drought guides us through a wide-ranging conversation on the transformative changes we are seeing in the American West as temperatures rise and how we should adapt to a future of more frequent droughts and dangerous wildfires. Dr. Williams is the recent co-author of the paper, "Uncertainties, Limits, and Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation for Soil Moisture Drought in Southwestern North America," and he explains the biggest findings of the research, how bad drought has been over the past two decades, and how this compares to historic megadroughts.  You can learn more about Dr. Williams and his research at his website here. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/ As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our new YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group. Check out our updated website!

On this installment of our series, The Road To COP26 Presented By Octopus Energy, Runa Khan, founder and Executive Director of Friendship International, joins the show to talk about the work her organization has done to help people displaced by the climate crisis, and why more needs to be done by the richest countries in the world at COP26 and beyond to help developing nations mitigate emissions and adapt to a warming planet. Learn more about Friendship Alexander Kauffman's article about Biden's climate finance pledge Thank you to our sponsor Octopus Energy, a 100% renewable electricity supplier. Octopus Energy is currently serving millions of homes around the globe in countries like the United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand, and Germany.  Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/ As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our new YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group. Check out our updated website!

This week, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe joins the show to talk about her new book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. Her book is an incredibly helpful guide for anyone that wants to feel more comfortable talking about climate change, and talking about climate change is one of the most important things we can do. Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist and an endowed chair and distinguished professor in the department of Political Scientist at Texas Tech. She’s also the Chief Scientist for the Nature Conservancy. Buy Saving Us Check out our YouTube explainer on the UN Synthesis Report As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Join our Facebook group. Check out our updated website! Subscribe to our YouTube channel!  

This week, Ben Franta joins the show to talk about his latest paper, "Weaponizing Economics: Big oil, economic consultants, and climate policy delay”. He explains how fossil fuel companies knew for decades that their product was warming the planet and instead of investing in new energy options, leveraged economic experts to help slow necessary action to combat the climate crisis. We also discuss Harvard University's decision to divest from fossil fuels, which Ben advocated for as a student of Harvard University almost a decade ago. Ben is currently a graduate student at Stanford University focusing on the history of denial and delay tactics by the fossil fuel industry. He is also cofounder and current Director of Accountability Research for the Climate Social Science Network, a global network of social science scholars doing research on climate politics headquartered at Brown University. Follow Ben on Twitter and LinkedIn Check out Ben's TedTalk Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/ As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Join our Facebook group. Check out our updated website! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! We will be live on YouTube this Saturday, September 18 at 4 pm ET. Come say hi!