How We Survive

Latest Episodes:

Burning Questions: Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” passed. What now for the climate? Jul 08, 2025

Show notes

Last week’s massive spending and tax bill, named the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” was signed into law by President Trump. It includes major cuts to clean energy incentives, pushed forward by the Biden Administration’s signature climate law, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The new law is a huge setback against cutting emissions and transitioning to clean energy. “How We Survive” host Amy Scott talks with Shannon Osaka, climate zeitgeist reporter at The Washington Post, to find out how this will impact the climate crisis and how consumers can take advantage of clean energy tax credits while they’re still around.

Burning Questions: How do cuts to NOAA impact all of us? Jun 27, 2025

Show notes

June marks the start of hurricane season but thanks to the climate crisis we’re dealing with extreme weather year-round. Just in the past month, deadly storms have devastated Kentucky and a brutal heat-wave is surging across the country. With the recent cuts to NOAA and the National Weather Service, weather stations are understaffed and weather forecasting might be impacted. In this episode of Burning Questions, host Amy Scott talks with former National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellinni to find out how the cuts to NOAA impact all of us.

ESG, Reincarnated Apr 23, 2025

Show notes

Can we invest our way out of the climate crisis? That’s the question we started this series with, and in this episode, we try to answer that question.

Host Amy Scott pops the hood of her own retirement investments to look at how to reduce their carbon impact, and she shows you how you can too. We visit a battery storage farm in the Bronx to see how New York City is leveraging its shareholder power to accelerate the energy transition. Finally, we look at a phenomenon that has emerged in the wake of backlash against environmental, social and governance investing — something called “greenhushing.”

The Death of ESG Apr 16, 2025

Show notes

In recent years, ESG investing moved from a mainstream strategy promoted by the biggest asset managers in the world, to a polarizing topic. Financial firms scrubbed the acronym from their websites, dropped out of net-zero initiatives, and stopped advertising their climate efforts. Some have proclaimed ESG dead and buried. But if so, who killed it and why?

In this episode – our ESG whodunit – we take out our magnifying glasses to take a closer look at the legislation that would spark dozens of other bills across the country. We’ll question a line-up of suspects at the center of the anti-ESG plot, and dive into their motivations for protecting the fossil fuel industry.

The God Box Apr 09, 2025

Show notes

To understand the fierce and widespread backlash to environmental, social and governance investing — and more specifically, climate-conscious investing — it helps to first understand its humble origins. Part of that history began about as far from Wall Street as possible, spiritually anyway, with faith-based investors.

In this episode of “How We Survive,” we travel to the hub for religious investors: the God Box in New York City, aka The Interchurch Center. We trace the parallel tracks of religious investors and Wall Street stakeholders back in time to find out how ESG became the polarizing strategy it is today.

“How We Survive” returns April 9 Apr 02, 2025

Show notes

Can capitalism save us? In 2020, it seemed like the answer was “possibly.” That year, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink shook up the investment world in his annual letter to companies, in which he made climate change a major focus. On CNBC he stated, “We believe a portfolio that focuses on sustainability and climate change will be a portfolio that outperforms … and it will also help the planet.” But that was before a fierce backlash ensued.

In this season of “How We Survive,” we follow the money — from a gathering of religious investors in New York City to a yacht in the Port of Houston — to trace how climate-conscious investing (the E in ESG) evolved from a small corner of the market, to a mainstream strategy, to a bogeyman of the right. We uncover the ways climate-conscious investing lives on today and ask: Can we invest our way out of the climate crisis?

Burning Questions: Is the future insurable? Jan 27, 2025

Show notes

Since early January, historic wildfires have been burning across Los Angeles. Over two dozen people have died, and more than 10,000 homes have been destroyed. Insured losses may exceed $20 billion. In the months prior to the fires, thousands of Los Angeles homeowners were dropped by insurers. Some moved over to the state-funded insurance FAIR plan while many others remained insurance-less. In this episode of “Burning Questions,” the How We Survive team surveys the devastation on the ground in the Pacific Palisades and host Amy Scott talks with Carolyn Kousky from the Environmental Defense Fund to find out if the future is insurable and what that might mean for the housing market.

The Banks Growing Money on Trees (bonus episode from “Outside Podcast”) Dec 18, 2024

Show notes

This week, we’re sharing another podcast we like from our friends at Outside Magazine.

A quarter of the money at the world’s largest banks goes directly to funding fossil fuel projects. But what if it didn’t? In this episode of “Outside Podcast,” reporter Cat Jaffee calls customer service at her bank — one of the world’s largest financial institutions — to ask them if they might consider investing her money differently. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

Burning Questions: What are the climate wins and setbacks from the election? Nov 12, 2024

Show notes

Last week’s elections delivered climate wins and setbacks. What will a second Donald Trump presidency mean for climate policy going forward? What can President Joe Biden accomplish in the remainder of his term? And how did state climate measures perform? Host Amy Scott talks with Washington Post climate reporter Shannon Osaka to unpack it all.

Burning Questions: What’s driving climate misinformation (and what to do about it)? Oct 23, 2024

Show notes

In the wake of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, the internet was flooded with conspiracy theories and misinformation, ranging from false claims that the government geo-engineerd the storm on purpose, to false rumors around FEMA blocking aid from people who needed it.

In this installment of “Burning Questions,” “How We Survive” host Amy Scott interviews climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe to find out what drives conspiracy theories after a climate disaster and what we can do to combat misinformation with our friends and loved ones.

Resources to combat misinformation:

Katharine Hayhoe’s tools
You can also check out Katharine’s “Talking Climate” newsletter
FEMA’s hurricane rumor response
Skeptical Science resources
National Climate Assessment

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