The Climate Pod

Years into the COVID-19 pandemic, we've learned an extraordinary amount about how governments and economies can respond during prolonged global health crisis. We've also learned in this volatile world...there's a lot we don't know. In the rapidly changing reality, author Felix Salmon put forth a call for humility and optimism in his new book The Phoenix Economy: Work, Life, and Money in the New Not Normal. Salmon is back on the show this week to discuss the book and how he sees positive signs that we are quickly rebuilding from the ashes of the pandemic economy.  Felix Salmon is the Chief Financial Correspondent at Axios. Read The Phoenix Economy: Work, Life, and Money in the New Not Normal Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly" 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.

Centuries of systematically racist American policy has pushed Black communities into enduring the worst impacts of fossil fuel pollution and climate change. In her new book, Before the Streetlights Come On: Black America’s Urgent Call for Climate Solutions, Heather McTeer Toney outlines how Black Americans experience these injustices - from extreme heat to petrochemical toxins and many more. But as we confront the long history of environmental racism, how do we empower the most impacted communities to lead on climate solutions? In this conversation, McTeer Toney puts forth a plan and an understanding of why we need to attack these injustices with the greatest sense of urgency.  Heather McTeer is the Executive Director of Bloomberg's Beyond Petrochemicals Campaign. She has also served as the mayor of Greenville, Mississippi and Southeast Regional EPA Administrator.  Read Before the Streetlights Come On Learn more about the Beyond Petrochemicals Campaign Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly" 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.

How do we dramatically accelerate the pace of climate action and reduce emissions? According to Simon Sharpe's new book, Five Times Faster, it will take a fundamental rethinking of how we practice science, economics, and diplomacy. In this in-depth conversation, we examine his three solutions, what needs to get done to get there, and how achieving certain tipping points in clean technologies will create wide-spanning changes.  Simon Sharpe is Director of Economics for the Climate Champions Team and a Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute. He designed and led flagship international campaigns of the UK’s Presidency of COP26 and worked as the head of private office to a minister of energy and climate change in the UK Government and has served diplomatic postings in both China and India. Read Five Times Faster: Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly" 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.

The record-shattering ocean surface temperatures across the Atlantic over the last two weeks have shocked anyone paying attention to the climate crisis. Ocean surface temperatures are more than a degree Fahrenheit above previous records, and climate scientists hadn't expected this level of warming for decades, even in the worst case scenario models. But is there more to the story than human-caused climate change? Are there other factors contributing to this spike in ocean temperatures? How likely is it that the ocean has surpassed a tipping point that could spell disaster for marine life and all of the lifeforms that depend on a healthy marine ecosystem, including humans. Jeff Berardelli, WFLA's Chief Meteorologist and Climate Specialist joins The Climate Pod to answer these questions and explain global warming's impact on the warming oceans and the other causes of the extreme temperatures we're seeing. We also discuss El Nino's potential impact on 2023's extreme weather, the Texas heatwave, the early season hurricane forming in the Atlantic Ocean, and a little history behind Dr. Ed Hawkins' Climate Stripes as we celebrate International #ShowYourStripes Day. And Ty and Brock celebrate the 4 Year Anniversary of The Climate Pod and express their gratitude for the incredible guests that have appeared on the show. Check out Jeff's Climate Classroom: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/climate-classroom-with-chief-meteorologist-jeff/id1688616984 Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly" 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.

Last week, wildfire smoke blanketed some of North America's biggest cities, sweeping across large swaths of the northeast and beyond. The smoke exposed millions to deadly levels of pollution and made many consider new climate adaptation strategies that may have previously overlooked. So what exactly happened? The team at Heatmap News put together some of the best coverage on an entire week of deadly wildfire smoke, looking at countless angles of a story that dominated headlines for days. This week, we talk to three writers at the heart of Heatmap's wildfire coverage. Guests on the episode include: Robinson Meyer, founding executive editor of Heatmap. He was previously a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covered climate change, energy, and technology. Emily Pontecorvo, a founding staff writer at Heatmap. Previously she was a staff writer at the nonprofit climate journalism outlet Grist, where she covered all aspects of decarbonization, from clean energy to electrified buildings to carbon dioxide removal. Jeva Lange, a founding staff writer at Heatmap. Her writing has also appeared in The Week, where she formerly served as executive editor and culture critic, as well as in The New York Daily News, Vice, and Gothamist, among others.  Related Reading Almost Everyone Got the Smoke Wrong The Worst Day for Wildfire Pollution in U.S. History  The 5 Big Questions About the 2023 Wildfire Smoke Crisis The East Coast’s Wildfire Smoke Is On Par With the West’s Worst Days Is It Safe to Go Outside?  How to Stay Safe from Wildfire Smoke Indoors Is the Smoke Bad for My Plants? How Many People Will This Smoke Kill?  The Smoke Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better  Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly" 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.

Dr. Peter Gleick, one of the world's leading scientists and communicators on water and climate crisis issues, returns to The Climate Pod to talk about his new book "The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and Hope for the Future." This conversation highlights human history's inextricable links with water - how water influenced the evolution of homo sapiens, water's central role in nearly every religion's origin story, the science and technology created in response to waterborne diseases, and so much more. Plus, Dr. Gleick outlines a path forward from our current relationship with water, one of mindless extraction and pollution to feed the insatiable appetite of a growth-focused economy, toward a more sustainable future where everyone has access to clean drinking water and ecosystems can thrive in unpolluted waters. Buy "The Three Ages of Water" Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly" 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.  

Not all climate activism has been popular. Some of the most viral, disruptive protests have been met with backlash, even by some in the climate movement itself. As Dr. Margaret Klein Salamon notes, these activists are operating in "emergency mode," serving as a reminder that the climate crisis is a crisis and nothing should be prioritized above it.  In the latest edition of her book Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth, Dr. Klein Salamon argues that too few of us are operating in emergency mode, even in the climate fight. So how do we get there? On today's show, we discuss what emergency mode looks like, the data-driven approach to understanding the role of protest in raising awareness and leading to electoral success, and the emotional benefits to honestly reckoning with the climate crisis.  Read Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly" 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.

As the Earth warms and many parts of America become uninhabitable, where will Americans go to find new homes? How will the communities built by American-born climate migrants be different from those they left? What can turn the hope of a new beginning into the nightmare they had been trying to flee? This week, we talk to Michelle Min Sterling, author of the new book "Camp Zero". Set in 2049, "Camp Zero" tells the story of two American settlements, one government-funded and one privately-funded, trying to establish new communities now that America has been ravaged by droughts, storms, and floods fueled by an ever-worsening climate crisis. Buy "Camp Zero" Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly" 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.

In order for the United States to hit its Net Zero Emissions Goal by 2050, it's estimated that 3,100 gigawatts of wind and 3,500 gigawatts of solar capacity will be need across America. If clean energy developers continue to site and build as they are doing now, the land required to host all of that solar and wind generation will be larger than the state of Texas! In addition to the massive amount of land required for these critical clean energy resources, we also need new transmission lines that bring the electricity generated back to the communities and homes that can actually use it.  All of this development can be harmful to the nearby lands, waters, and ecosystems if careful planning isn't undertaken. That's why The Nature Conservancy released their latest report "Power of Place: National". This week, we spoke with Jessica Wilkinson, North American Renewable Energy Team Lead at The Nature Conservancy, and Nels Johnson, Senior Advisor for Renewable Energy for the Nature Conservancy, to talk about this report and explain the strategies and technologies necessary to reduce the impacts of America's clean energy transition by as much as 70%. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly" 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.

More than four years after it was first introduced, the Green New Deal has been extraordinarily influential in public policy around the globe. Though as a binding resolution it has not been enacted into law in the US, President Biden has referenced it as a crucial framework for his own climate plans. And many of the principles of the Green New Deal - centering climate justice, economic rights, and robust public investments - are certainly evident in many of the policies included in the Inflation Reduction Act.  But the complete plans of the Green New Deal are from realized. And as Professor Mark Paul notes, that's a mistake. In order to adequately combat the climate crisis, a number of economic rights need to be established to deliver a more sustainable, just, and thriving economy - one that prioritizes human flourishing.  It's these economic rights that Paul puts forth in his new book,  The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights. This week, he joins the show to discuss the long history of fighting for economic freedom in America, how the neoliberal era has warped our sense of what's possible, and the Green New Deal and other movement efforts have revitalized the fight. Dr. Mark Paul is an assistant professor of the Bloustein School at Rutgers University and is also a member of the Rutgers Climate Institute. Read The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly" 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.