Climate & Clean Energy Episodes

Every single one of us needs air, water, food, shelter, and energy. So why are the infrastructure that provides them, the systems we are most reliant on hidden in plain sight? How can we reconnect with them, appreciate them, rebuild them, reinforce the ones we already have, and build new ones that actually benefit everyone? Those are today's big questions, and my guest is Deb Chachra . Deb is a material scientist and professor of engineering at Olin College of Engineering . She has studied bones...

Over the past few years, more and more voters have cited “action on climate” as a reason for voting the way they do. But here’s the thing: lots of voters who are registered, and even those who do vote in presidential elections – don’t turn out for midterms. Much less for state and local races. Millions of registered voters who list the environment or climate as their most important issue do the same. Success might not actually be about identifying and focusing on one specific issue, campaign, or...

Sure, we've got to electrify everything, including 1 billion machines by 2050 . But where are we now and how do we get there? That's today's big question, and my guest is Cora Wyent from Rewiring America . Cora is the Director of Research at Rewiring America , where she's conducting research and analysis to enable rapid electrification of everything in the economy. Prior to joining Rewiring America , Cora completed her PhD in physics at Caltech , where she studied new materials for ultra thin so...

Why the hell is America's public transportation so terrible? That's today's big question, and my guest is Nicholas Dagen Bloom . He's the author of the subtly titled new book, the Great American Transit Disaster . Nicholas is a professor of urban policy and planning at Hunter College . He's the author of a bunch of books including Public Housing That Worked , The Metropolitan Airport and How States Shaped Post-War America . He's also the co-editor of the prize-winning Public Housing Myths and Af...

What's in wildfire smoke and how can you protect yourself from it? Those are today's big questions, and my guest is Dr. Mary Prunicki. Dr. Prunicki is the Director of Air Pollution and Health Research at Stanford University under the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research . Her lab examines the impact of air pollution and wildfires on health, specifically immune health. Dr. Prunicki and I got together in late summer 2021 as fires and smoke just enveloped the American West and even...

You've got insurance, right? Are you sure? That's today's big question, and my guest is Washington Post reporter Brianna Sacks . Brianna's an extreme weather and disaster reporter for the Post where she explores how climate change is transforming the United States through violent storms, intense heat, widespread wildfires, and other forms of extreme weather. Brianna deploys to disaster zones, which are sometimes very close to home, and does enterprise reporting on the preparations for responses ...

What can I do? The simple question is the underlying premise of everything we do here. It's often the easiest one to help people answer for themselves, but from the outside, it's often the most imposing. All of which is why we keep coming back to it, and why I'm so excited about the fantastic new book, The Climate Action Handbook by Dr. Heidi Roop. Dr. Roop is the Director of the University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership and an assistant professor of climate science and extension sp...

Where the hell did all of the electricians go? That's today's big question, and my guest is leading journalist Emily Pontecorvo . Until recently, Emily was an energy, environment, and climate reporter at Grist , one of our favorite publications. She's now moved on to the new climate newsroom Heatmap . Emily has covered the whole enchilada from green hydrogen subsidies to coal ash, scope three emissions, Fashion Week, airports, locusts, frequent flyers, college divestment movements, carbon remova...

What if you got the chance to dive to the bottom of the ocean? Would you go? And what would you find there? That's today's big question and my returning guest, one of my all-time favorites, is Dr. Dawn Wright , better known the world over as Deep Sea Dawn . Dawn recently became the 27th person ever in history and the first Black person ever to dive into the Challenger Deep , the deepest part of Earth's ocean. Dawn is an elected member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Aca...

What if I told you there was less oxygen in the ocean than there used to be? That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Dawn Wright, or as many in the ocean community know her "Deep Sea Dawn." Dawn Wright is an elected member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering . She's the Chief Scientist at ESRI , where she works with other scientists to map the ocean floor in 3D. In 2018 , when I was just a baby podcaster, when Brian was my co-host, I saw a he...

This week: In response to our ongoing and delightful home electrification series with our friends at Rewiring America , we have received a hell of a lot of questions that are beyond our ability to answer. So we brought in the experts: previous pod guest John Semmelhack , home electrification wiz and co-owner of The Comfort Squad, and Joel Rosenberg , member of the Special Projects team at Rewiring America. Your regularly scheduled newsletter will return next week! Here's What You Can Do: Find a ...

How do we reimagine capitalism in a world on fire? That's today's big question, and my guest is Rebecca Henderson , Harvard professor behind the wildly popular class "Reimagining Capitalism". I had Rebecca on the show in 2020 to discuss her book of the same name and her research, which explores the degree to which the private sector can play a major role in building a more sustainable economy, focusing on the relationships between organizational purpose, innovation, productivity, and high-perfor...

How can I be a better ancestor? This question has haunted and inspired me since way back in 2019 when I first read the Optimist's Telescope . A beautiful, helpful, inspiring book by Bina Venkataraman. Then I had Bina on the show. I think it's fair to say it reframed and focused my work and now all of our work here . You simply cannot be a better ancestor by hoping shit gets better in posting black boxes on your Instagram stories. You have to do the work for today and tomorrow. If you want your d...

What’s one big change we can make that can make our food healthier, make farming more lucrative, draw down carbon in the atmosphere, and reduce climate emigration? That’s today’s big question, and my guest is Sasankh Munukutla, another fellow in our series with the 776 Foundation . Sasankh is the Co-Founder of Terradot , a satellite and AI-based gigaton-scale, soil-carbon sequestration verification system. Sasankh originally hails from Singapore and grew up across countries as a third-culture ki...

Aluminum. It’s everywhere! And we’re going to need a hell of a lot more of it in the future. Aluminum is a primary ingredient in solar, wind, hydro, concentrated solar, bioenergy, the grid, batteries, hydrogen, and more. And that’s just electricity generation and distribution, to say nothing of consumer goods, from EVs to baseball bats. Great news: we already collect and recycle a hell of a lot of it. Compared to, say, plastic, this is a huge win! But…the bit we haven’t been able to recycle is 1...

It’s always worth revisiting the inarguable fact that our country was designed to be inequitable . And while much progress has been made over time, the powers that be continued to imagine and design new ways of marginalizing, at best, Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous people throughout our society and economy. But who will tell their story? And who should? Local news has all but disappeared. Meanwhile, the communities most marginalized and least covered by mainstream publishers continue to str...

Throughout history, kings, queens, governments, churches, and donors have funded contests and awarded prizes for solving the most difficult problems of the day. Today, as we stand on the precipice of huge problems and opportunity , with everyone looking around going “What can I do?” the utility and relative inclusivity of prizes like these remains compelling. And there’s one group that’s driving them more than anyone – XPRIZE . My guest today is Dr. Marcius Extavour . Marcius is the Chief Scient...

How lucky are we? How lucky are we that we live in a time of such great opportunity – when, yes, we’re teetering on the edge of a global climate calamity, still reeling from a pandemic, knowing that our problems and challenges are not only enormous, but systemic, all-encompassing, and often linked together. How lucky are we to be able to say – look at all of this opportunity, look at all of the ways I could have an impact, need to have an impact, right now? How lucky are we that so many people, ...

For decades Americans have relied on wood, oil, and gas to power, heat, and cool our homes, and the water we use to drink, cool, and bathe in. But these things have helped fuel our climate crisis – by some estimates, residential energy use accounts for about 20% of US greenhouse gas emissions. That’s a lot. Not to mention, burning wood inside and using gas stoves and fireplaces, and water heaters are just straight-up terrible for our health. Great news though. An electric future awaits us, and n...

“What can I do?” This is the question I get most often. It’s the question that early on pivoted our newsletter and then this podcast towards measurable action steps that help you feel better and drive systemic change. I don’t have anywhere near all the answers to basically anything, so I usually answer people with “What CAN you do?” …to stall for time, but also to open up the conversation. Because the answer to what CAN you do is usually best found at the intersection of your interests or passio...

If you give a shit, well, you’ve probably had at least a few moments where the enormity of what’s in front of us has challenged your mental health in some way . I can’t imagine there are many folks listening to this show who’ve never felt the heaviness of our climate future, of our climate present. There’s a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, a lot of shame about that shame, a lot of furious action – we’re here, aren’t we. And running parallel alongside all of those emotions is the dread of what’s be...

Over the past few years, more and more voters have cited “action on climate” as a reason for voting the way they do. From Data for Progress , in October: Over two-thirds of voters ( 68 percent ), agree that the U.S. should lead the world in addressing climate change so other countries will follow suit. From November: Roughly two-thirds of voters ( 64 percent ) think that the U.S. should invest in cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable energy sources rather than ramp up fossil fuel production and co...

There’s no word for “conservation” in many Indigenous languages. Some come close, but mean something more like “taking care of” or “looking after.” And that’s probably because the very idea of conservation, to “prevention the wasteful use of a resource”, would have been, and continue to be, foreign to many of North America’s Indigenous peoples, who lived in an entirely different, co-dependent relationship with nature. That is to say, to have had a relationship at all. A relationship with the ver...

In 2019, Quinn interviewed his good friend Craig Mazin , writer, producer, and creator of the hit HBO miniseries, Chernobyl , to learn what happened there, and what it means for our energy future. This week, Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine, directing the Russian military to take Ukraine's bases, cities, people, and strategic assets. Today, they took Chernobyl . We're re-running this invaluable conversation because misinformation is rampant, and it's never been more important to understand...