The Climate Pod

Latest Episodes:

Rep. Ro Khanna on Fixing Big Tech, Build Back Better, and Fossil Fuel Hearings Feb 02, 2022

Show notes

This week, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) joins the podcast to discuss his new book "Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us", as well as what he thinks will happen with President Biden's climate legislation in the Build Back Better Act. He also gives us a preview of what to expect with the upcoming House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment's hearings featuring representatives from America's biggest fossil fuel organizations.

Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel also discuss the importance of a federal judge rejecting the Biden Administration's sale of millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico to be used for oil drilling.

Buy Dignity in a Digital Age

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:

Court Rejects Oil and Gas Leases, Citing Climate Change

Billionaires Are Ruining The Planet (w/ Peter S. Goodman) Jan 26, 2022

Show notes

In Davos Man, an excellent new book by New York Times' Global Economics Correspondent Peter S. Goodman, the case is clear: billionaires are making massive profits off extracting resources from the planet while social services are being gutted. From climate change to COVID-19, Goodman shows how decades of slashing taxes on the richest people and cutting social spending has accelerated the 21st century's greatest crises and threatened liberal democracy around the globe. How is this happening? Why is this happening? What can we do about it? In this in-depth, fascinating conversation, Goodman explains the path we took to get here and the direction we need to take now to better govern our societies and protect the future.

Buy Davos Man

Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/

Major Global Shifts On The Climate Crisis' Front Lines (w/ Financial Times' Simon Mundy) Jan 19, 2022

Show notes

This is one of the most wide-ranging, comprehensive episodes we've ever had. Simon Mundy, who serves as the Moral Money editor of the Financial Times, spent years traveling through 26 countries on six continents finding a diverse set of stories and people who represent many of the massive shifts underway around the globe. In his new book, Race For Tomorrow: Survival, Innovation, And Profit On The Front Lines Of The Climate Crisis, he details those travels and the vast disparities and outcomes people are experiencing as unjust global transformations occur. We talk about ancient Mammoth tusk hunting in Siberia, Cobalt mining in the Congo, breakthrough innovation in Iceland, climate displacement in the Philippines, and much, much more.

Read Race For Tomorrow: Survival, Innovation, And Profit On The Front Lines Of The Climate Crisis

Watch the series of short films from Simon's journey

Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/

Adam McKay On 'Don't Look Up' Jan 12, 2022

Show notes

Adam McKay is the writer/director of some of our favorite films over the years - from Anchorman to The Big Short to Vice and more. So when we heard he was making a disaster film that serves as an allegory for climate change, we...um...freaked out. And we freaked even more when he was kind of enough to join us on the show to discuss the film, the power structures behind the climate crisis he wanted to satirize, and what he hopes people will take from the movie. This is a fantastic conversation.

Watch Don't Look Up on Netflix

Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/

Remembering Dr. Thomas Lovejoy (w/ WWF's Carter Roberts) Jan 08, 2022

Show notes

The world lost a legendary biologist and conservationist when Dr. Thomas Lovejoy passed away in December at the age of 80. Carter Roberts, president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund in the United States, knew Dr. Lovejoy well. So we asked him to join us on the podcast today to honor the memory of Dr. Lovejoy and share what he meant to WWF and talk about the legacy he leaves behind. Carter also discusses the recent passing of another conservation legend, Dr. E.O. Wilson, and what he meant as a luminary in his field and his contributions to WWF.

Later in the show, we replay our May 2020 interview with Dr. Thomas Lovejoy.

Read Carter Roberts' "In Memoriam—Dr. Thomas Lovejoy"

Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/

The 'Doomsday Glacier's' Disastrous Potential (w/ Dr. Richard Alley) Jan 05, 2022

Show notes

This week, we spoke with Dr. Richard Alley, a glaciologist and member of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaborative, about why this particular glacier - dubbed the 'Doomsday Glacier by Jeff Goodell - could raise sea levels beyond catastrophic levels and cause so much damage to coastal communities around the world. We also discuss how soon and how likely that might actually happen, and the latest findings that his group recently published.

Dr. Richard Alley is the Evan Pugh University Professor of Geosciences at Penn State, where he focuses on glaciology, ice sheet stability, and understanding how Earth's climate has changed by examining ice cores.

Check out the International Thwaites Glacier Collaborative's presentation to the American Geophysical Union in December 2021.

Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/

Further Reading:

The Return of the Urban Firestorm. What happened in Colorado was something much scarier than a wildfire.

Climate Change In 2021: The Biden Era Begins (Part Two) Dec 29, 2021

Show notes

When Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020, it marked a massive shift for the direction of the United States' action on climate change. And once President Biden was inaugurated in 2021, his administration brought big expectations to the Oval Office for how it would combat the crisis.

So what would Joe Biden commit to through executive action? What would Congress pass to fight climate change? How would the United States repair its own reputation on climate action on the international stage?

We answer all of those questions and more in Part Two of The Climate Pod's 2021 Year in Review: The Biden Era Begins, featuring clips from interviews we've conducted with guests like Governor Jay Inslee, Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Sen. Tina Smith, Dallas Goldtooth, Jane Kleeb, Rep. Sean Casten, Rep. Donald McEachin, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Time's Justin Worland, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, Dr. Michael Mann, and many more

Be sure to listen to Climate Pod's 2021 Year in Review: Denial And Consequences Part One here.

Check out the full length interviews of each guest featured in this episode:

Dr. Jeffrey Sachs

Governor Jay Inslee

Sen. Tina Smith

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse

Dallas Goldtooth

Jane Kleeb

Rep. Donald McEachin

Rep. Sean Casten - Part One and Part Two

Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/

Climate Change In 2021: Denial And Consequences (Part One) Dec 22, 2021

Show notes

After decades of denial and delay tactics by the fossil fuel industry, in 2021, America was largely unprepared for multiple climate-fueled extreme weather disasters. Wildfires. Heatwaves. Hurricanes. Droughts. Floods. Tornadoes.

How did a warming planet impact these weather events? Why haven't America's leaders done more to combat the climate crisis? What are fossil fuel companies still doing to delay action?

We answer all of those questions and more in Part One of The Climate Pod's 2021 Year in Review: Denial and Consequences, featuring clips from interviews we've conducted with guests like Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, Dr. Ed Hawkins, Dr. Michael Mann, Dr. Jane Goodall, Dr. Andrew Dessler, David Wallace-Wells, Dr. Maria Neira, Dr. Peter Hotez, Dr. Naomi Oreskes, Ben Franta, Kathy Baughman-McCloud, Alex Steffen, Scott Kelly, Jeff Berardelli, Dr. Park Williams, and Tim Jackson.

Subscribe to The Climate Pod and make sure you listen to Part Two next week!

Check out the full length interviews of each guest featured in this episode:

Kathy Baughman-McCloud

Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/

How Is Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Still Getting Financed In Developing Nations? (w/ Jeffrey Ball) Dec 15, 2021

Show notes

This week, we talk to Jeffrey Ball, who lead the recent study "Hot money: Illuminating the financing of high-carbon infrastructure in the developing world." In this conversation, we ask: if renewables are so cheap, why is fossil fuel infrastructure still being built in the developing world? Ball helps us understand what is happening and, more importantly, where the money is coming from to power the nation's most in need of more energy resources. He also explains the possible solutions and what to watch for as the politics and economics of decarbonization evolve.

Jeffrey Ball is the scholar-in-residence at Stanford University's Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, leads the The Stanford Climate of Infrastructure Project, and is a lecturer at Stanford Law School. He is a long-time writer on energy and climate issues and has appeared in Fortune, Foreign Affairs, Mother Jones, Texas Monthly, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and Slate. You can check out more of his work on his website here.

Subscribe to our Substack newsletter "The Climate Weekly": https://theclimateweekly.substack.com/