The Climate Pod

Dharna Noor, a climate reporter at Guardian US and former Boston Globe climate producer, breaks down the outcomes of COP29. She shares her firsthand experiences from the conference, highlighting the central themes of climate finance and the complex negotiations between developed and developing nations. The intense discussions around a proposed $300 billion annual contribution are revealed, along with insights into the influence of the fossil fuel industry. Dharna emphasizes the critical role of quality journalism in shaping climate discourse and action.

"Among the growing effects of the climate crisis, the evolution of hurricanes is one of the more immediate and destructive." Our oceans are warming. Superstorms are intensifying. In Porter Fox's new book, the accelerating danger resulting from these two realities of the climate crisis is on full display. And Fox is no stranger to the ocean - as a longtime sailor and decades-long climate writer, he literally confronts deadly storms in his reporting. Now, with latest book, Category Five, Superstorms and the Warming Oceans that Feed Them, he's unpacking what he's heard from scientists and explorers alike to mark the changes we've already seen with oceans and superstorms and what's in store as warming accelerates. He joins this week to talk about the damage we're seeing from natural disasters, the disparity in disaster responses, and why he wanted to combine memoir and climate science for this book. Porter Fox is a writer and author of books like The Last Winter and Northland. He writes and edits the award-winning literary travel writing journal Nowhere, teaches at Columbia University School of the Arts and is a MacDowell Fellow. Read Category Five, Superstorms and the Warming Oceans that Feed Them 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 YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.

As our environment changes, so do our brains. Climate changes impact our physical environments is many noticeable ways, but it's also changing us on the inside as well. Clayton Page Aldern is a neuroscientist turned environmental journalist who has unpacked this phenomenon in his new book, The Weight of Nature: How A Changing Climate Changes Our Brains. He joins the show this week to discuss how our brains adapt to climate change and limits we face, how shifting baseline syndrome impacts climate action, what's happening to our brains under rising temperatures, and what climate changes tell us about broader ideas surrounding free will. Clayton's work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New Republic, Mother Jones, Vox, Newsweek, The Economist, Scientific American, and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter. Read The Weight of Nature: How A Changing Climate Changes Our Brains 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 YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.

For 57 years, Ed Begley Jr. has been in literally hundreds of your favorite movies and television shows. And during those years, he's also established himself as one of the most prominent voices in Hollywood on environmental sustainability and climate action. Now, he's with a new memoir, To the Temple of Tranquility…And Step On It!, which recounts his life in both entertainment and environmental and climate advocate. Ed joins us on the show this week to discuss his life and career. We talk about his early days as a stand up comic, how he initially got into activism, his friendship with Cesar Chavez, mulling over bizarre clean energy ideas with Marlon Brando, finding common ground with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and why 1970s Los Angeles was such a great time and place for activism in entertainment. We also discuss his more recent roles in shows like Better Call Saul and why more great climate storytelling is happening, like with his friend Paul Schrader's 2017 film First Reformed. Read To the Temple of Tranquility…And Step On It! 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 YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.

Rev. Lennox Yearwood, a leader in the climate movement and President & CEO of Hip Hop Caucus, shares his rich experience in advocating for climate solutions. He discusses the urgent challenges of 2024, including extreme weather and regulatory rollbacks. Yearwood highlights a new campaign focused on community engagement and the need for cultural change in activism. He reflects on his transformative experience during Hurricane Katrina, emphasizing intersectionality and the power of storytelling to galvanize support and foster resilience in the climate justice movement.

In 2008, the world economic system was rocked by a financial crisis that stemmed from risky mortgages being securitized and sold as safe investments to unknowing investors. Misaligned incentives, unpriced risk, deceptive selling practices, and a lack of regulatory scrutiny throughout the financial industry led to the Great Recession, the consequences of which we're still feeling in a variety of ways today. While somewhat different from what preceded the 2008 financial crisis, there are clear parallels with what's happening in the home insurance and mortgage markets in areas most at risk to damage from climate-worsened storms. As large, traditional insurance companies are leaving states like Florida, California, and Louisiana because the damages from hurricanes, floods, and wildfires have become too large, new insurance companies are replacing them. These companies are smaller, less diverse, and rely on a ratings agency known to provide good ratings to underserving companies. Unsurprisingly, when climate catastrophes hit, these insurers often go bankrupt, leaving home owners and their banks with a destroyed home and asset without the funds to rebuild or even repair. And the implications of this aren't isolated to the local level, because most of these mortgages are securitized and sold at the national level. This week, Prof. Pari Sastry joins the show to discuss her recent paper "When Insurers Exit: Climate Losses, Fragile Insurers, and Mortgage Markets". This paper explains how the home home mortgage, insurance markets, and global economy are interconnected and how the climate crisis is impacting all three. As the world is still recovering from the 2008 financial crisis, it's shocking to see the early stages of what appears to be some of the same causes play out today. And we know that the climate crisis is only going to increase the number of severe weather events, which will put an even greater strain on insurance and mortgage companies, further worsening an already fragile relationship. Prof. Pari Sastry is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Columbia Business School where she focuses her research on climate finance. Read "When Insurers Exit": https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4674279 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 YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.

Dr. Genevieve Guenther discusses combating climate change myths, the importance of transformative action language, and the need to stop using the 'India and China' excuse. She explores the costs of clean energy, challenges in climate communication, and the potential savings through decarbonization. The podcast also touches on the risks of Atlantic current collapse and China's climate leadership compared to the US.

For 70 years, building out and expanding American highways have been core parts to the entire US transportation project. But the initial effort to connect cities and states has created gigantic problems in the subsequent decades. Instead of fixing many of these critical issues, too often we see cities and states double down on the problem and make our transportation system worse. And carbon emissions from the transportation sector are a huge part of the climate fight. So what do we do about highways as these roads continue to expand and draw investment? Our guest, Megan Kimble, has been looking for the answers. In her new book, City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and The Future of America's Highways, she both looks back at the origins of the American highway system and examines today's fight to determine what is happening and how decisions are being made that design our transportation system. We discuss the "freeway fighters" that are working to remove highways and prevent highways from being expanded, how federal investments favor highways over transit, how highways have been used to exacerbate racial inequities, and why climate activists are helping to make change. Megan Kimble is an investigative journalist and former executive editor at The Texas Observer. She has written about housing, transportation, and urban development for The New York Times, Texas Monthly, The Guardian, and Bloomberg CityLab. Check out City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and The Future of America's Highways 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 YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.

President Biden campaigned on the promises of producing 100% of America's electricity with clean energy resources by 2035 and getting America's economy to Net Zero emissions by 2050. Since President Biden took office, the US Congress has passed the Bi-partisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPs and Science Act - all aimed at helping America transition to a clean energy economy. In addition to creating incentives for private companies to invest in clean energy manufacturing in America, those three bills also provided billions of dollars to the United States Department of Energy to oversee the research, development, and deployment of clean energy technologies. Secretary Jennifer Granholm has led the Department of Energy throughout the entire Biden Administration and has completely restructured the Department to achieve President Biden's clean energy goals for America. This week, Secretary Granholm joins The Climate Pod to discuss how the DOE helps enable the deployment of new clean energy technologies, what should be done about technology companies ramping up their energy consumption due to massive data centers, what the DOE could look like under a second Biden or Trump presidential term, and so much more. 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 YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.

Mary Annaïse Heglar is back on the show to discuss her new book "Troubled Waters", a fictional account of a young Black woman in Mississippi that uses direct action against the fossil fuel industry as a healing mechanism for her own grief, while also learning about the grief and trauma that her own grandmother carries with her from her days at the center of the Civil Rights movement. Mary Annaïse Heglar is one of the great essayists and writers about the climate crisis, climate grief, and climate justice. Buy "Troubled Waters" Buy "The World is Ours to Cherish" 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 YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.