The Climate Pod

Modern infrastructure has the ability to make our lives better. Instant access to power and clean water. The ability to communicate with friends and family around the world. The freedom to quickly get where we want when we want. But today's infrastructure is still very flawed. Not everyone has access to that infrastructure, which means not everyone has the agency and abilities that infrastructure can create. Our infrastructure is also directly contributing to the climate crisis. And our infrastructure was built with the assumption that the natural world upon which it relies will stay the same, but we know now that the natural world is changing rapidly as a result of a warming planet. So what can be done to create a more sustainable, resilient, and just infrastructure? This week, we speak with Professor Deb Chachra about her new book "How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems that Shape Our World". Professor Chachra is a Professor of Engineering at Olin College of Engineering and has traveled the work admiring and examining the infrastructure that so many take for granted but which enables the lives of billions of people around the world. This conversation is a deep dive into infrastructure and the world it has created and what the world could look like if we start building better infrastructure now. Buy "How Infrastructure Works" 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.

In his latest book, Our Fragile Moment - How Lessons From Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive The Climate Crisis, Professor Michael Mann makes it clear: uncertainty, when it comes to climate change, is not our friend. The famed climate professor is back on the show this week to discuss how looking back through Earth's paleoclimate record shows how fragile our current moment really is, but why we also have agency to do something about it and an urgent need to act now. We discuss what history has taught him about a potential "methane bomb," whether the Gulf Stream could actually collapse, if we are likely to see more El Nino events in the future, and what he learned studying past extinctions. Michael Mann is the presidential distinguished professor and director of the Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania. Read Our Fragile Moment - How Lessons From Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive The Climate Crisis 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.

Every year, billions of dollars are spent worldwide on carbon offsets, and the size of the market is expected to grow substantially over the next decade. But do carbon offset projects actually do what they're intended to do in the first place, which is lower carbon dioxide emissions and help communities around the world avoid worsening climate disasters from a warming planet? Researchers at Corporate Accountability and journalists from The Guardian teamed up to answer this question and to dive deep into the claims of 50 of the largest carbon offset projects in the world. Rachel Rose Jackson, Director of Climate Research and Policy at Corporate Accountability, joins the show today to talk about what they found and what else Corporate Accountability is doing to protect our planet and people around the world from extractive and exploitative companies. Check out the report here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/19/do-carbon-credit-reduce-emissions-greenhouse-gases Learn more about Corporate Accountability: https://corporateaccountability.org/ 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.

The perpetual extraction by those striving for limitless wealth has set our planet on a trajectory that could make living here impossible for billions of humans by the end of this century. Marjorie Kelly, founder of Business Ethics Magazine and currently a Senior Fellow at the Democracy Collaborative, argues that in order to overcome the capital bias that has been so destructive to our society, we must first identify the root cause, delegitimize the myths upon which extractive capitalism relies upon today, and start laying the groundwork for real transformative change. She joins The Climate Pod this week to talk about her new book, "Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today's Crises", and to offer solutions, some of which are already having great impacts around the world today. Buy "Wealth Supremacy" Learn more about The Democracy Collaborative 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.

Last weekend, we recorded some great conversations at Farm Aid 2023 in Noblesville, Indiana! Given that Farm Aid 2023 was focused on how the climate crisis is impacting family farmers and how farmers are also working on necessary solutions through regenerative agriculture, we wanted to talk to some of the folks at the center of the event. On this episode, we speak to Indiana farmers DeAnthony and Denise Greer, as well as musicians Nathaniel Rateliff and The Particle Kid (aka Micah Nelson). We discuss a wide-range of topics on agriculture, activism, and what makes Farm Aid such a special event. This was recorded outside during a concert, so bear with us on the audio quality! Learn more: Watch Indiana Farmers Speak About Agriculture, Climate Resilience and Equity Learn more about Greer Farms 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 one of the architects of the Green New Deal, Rhiana Gunn-Wright has been a part of a fundamental shift in how climate policy is shaped and the discourse around it. But as she writes in her latest piece, "Our Green Transition May Leave Black People Behind," there are a number of ways that current climate policy is falling short on racial justice. She joins the show this week to share her critiques on the Inflation Reduction Act and discuss the power structures inhibiting more just policy. We also talk about the legacy of the Green New Deal more than four years after it debuted, how it changed the conversation on climate change, and what can be learned from its success. You can read "Our Green Transition May Leave Black People Behind" in the Summer 2023 issue of the new magazine, Hammer & Hope. 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.

In her 2022 book, "Cannibal Capitalism", Professor Nancy Fraser argues that "capitalism harbors a deep-seated ecological contradiction that inclines it non-accidentally to environmental crisis." Like the contradictions of capitalism that Karl Marx predicted would lead to crises and capitalism's ultimate downfall, Professor Fraser compelling lays out even more contradictions of capitalism that have all led to the multitude of crises humanity faces in 2023. Racism, gender oppression, the lack of care, the threats to democracy, and the climate crisis are all inevitable consequences of capitalism, according to Professor Fraser, and none can truly be solved without turning our backs on capitalism altogether. Professor Fraser joins The Climate Pod this week to dive deep into these topics and more. Co-hosts Brock and Ty also fondly remember their favorite Jimmy Buffett songs and the late musician's odd connection to The Climate Pod. Buy "Cannibal Capitalism" 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.

Every year, humans generate over 2 billion metric tons of solid waste worldwide. Where does it go after you're done with it? How does it impact communities and economies and ecosystems around the world? How can we solve such an enormous and growing problem? Oliver Franklin-Wallis dives deep into these questions and more in his new book "Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future." Oliver spent years traveling the globe to research and understand the complexities of the global waste crisis, its causes, and its potential solutions. He joins the show this week to discuss what he found and to help explain why this is such a complicated yet critical problem to solve. Plus, co-hosts Brock and Ty talk about the cringeworthy first Republican Presidential Debate and the continuation of climate denial from America's rightwing politicians. Buy Wasteland Further reading: From Emily Atkin's Heated: How Vivek Ramaswamy makes money from climate denial

At the time of publishing, the devastating wildfires in Maui have left hundreds missing, already more than one hundred people confirmed dead, and extraordinary damage visible throughout the town of Lahaina. As recovery gets underway, the fight for justice is only starting. Maui leaders are working to ensure an adequate federal government response and fighting against private industry from buying up wildfire damaged areas and exploiting the crisis. One of the leaders in the fight for a just recovery is Kaniela Ing. He is the National Director of the Green New Deal Network and former state legislator. He joins the show this week to discuss what happened in Maui, how this reveals a long history of colonialism, and why a robust response in the aftermath of this disaster by the federal government and climate movement can help serve as a model for future crises. Support recovery efforts at MauiRecoveryFund.org 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.

When Ty talked to Kurt Andersen back in 2020 upon the release of his exceptional book Evil Geniuses, we never thought it would lead to a sci-fi comedic series. Nevertheless, Andersen and Steven Soderbergh have co-created and recently released a new series, Command Z, which is a hilarious adaptation that addresses not only the major themes of Evil Geniuses but also explores how we might all think about all types of political action in 2023. Kurt's back on the show this week to discuss why making Command Z was a dream come true and what he wanted to explore with the series that he couldn't with a nonfiction book. We also get his thoughts on how the Inflation Reduction Act might be impacting our view on the role of government and undoing some of the damage of the Evil Geniuses he covered and what he thinks of the Federalist Society-approved, conservative Supreme Court justices that continue to be awful. Buy and watch Command Z here Further Reading: Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America The super-rich 'preppers' planning to save themselves from the apocalypse by Douglas Rushkoff 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.