The 28th annual Conference of the Parties, COP28, opens this week in Dubai. For the 28th time, the nations of the world have gathered to see what progress they can make on addressing the increasingly global climate crisis. It’s fair to wonder why, after three decades, we still haven’t taken the collective action necessary. And it’s equally fair to wonder why diplomats continue to bother with what Greta Thunberg famously called “blah, blah, blah.” This year’s COP marks the first “Global Stocktake,” an assessment of how the nations of the world are doing compared to the emissions-cutting commitments they made in Paris. The answer? Not well. And with COP28 being hosted by a major oil and gas producing nation and led by an industry executive, what hope is there for progress? Guests: Daniel Esty, Professor of Environmental Law & Policy, Yale Law School Ben Stockton, Investigative Reporter Aisha Khan, Chief Executive, Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change This episode features a segment from Contributing Reporter Rabiya Jaffrey. For show notes and related links, visit our website. 📞 Call us at (650) 382-3869 to share your clothing story for a chance to be featured on an upcoming episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most Americans support climate action, but you wouldn’t know it from Congress or the courts – or from most of the media. People on both the left and the right experience the same devastating floods, the same life-threatening heatwaves and the same catastrophic wildfires. Yet individuals tend to socialize within insulated political tribes, operate in completely different information bubbles and see the problems and solutions through different lenses. How can we learn to bridge ideological divides, develop trust, and find the common ground needed to rebuild respectful civil discourse? 📞 Call us at (650) 382-3869 to share your clothing story for a chance to be featured on an upcoming episode! Guests: John Curtis, U.S. Rep., Utah (R) Joan Blades, Co-founder, LivingRoomConversations.org John Gable, Co-founder, AllSides.com For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From The Coolest Show: The City of Atlanta has leased 381-acres of Weelaunee Forest, stolen Muscogee land, to the Atlanta Police Foundation for a police military facility funded by corporations. This would be the largest police training facility in the US in a primarily Black community who overwhelmingly oppose the project. Despite over fifteen hours of public comments against the project, the City Council has approved $67 million in public funding for Cop City. The plans include military-grade training facilities, a mock city to practice urban warfare, dozens of shooting ranges, and a Black Hawk helicopter landing pad. Residents have petitioned the municipal court of Atlanta to gather signatures for a binding referendum. With enough signatures, this would put whether or not Cop City gets built up for a vote on November’s ballot box. In this 2 part episode of The Coolest Show, Rev Yearwood speaks with community organizer Rev. Keyanna Jones, economist Dr. Gloria Bromell Tinubu, and community advocate Shar Bates. They discuss the history of the area surrounding the Weelaunee forest, the legacy of environmental racism, the community’s work to get signatures, and “the Atlanta Way.” Support the Stop Cop City movement: https://www.copcityvote.com/ For more from The Coolest Show: https://thecoolestshow.com/ This episode was originally produced by The Coolest Show, a Hip Hop Caucus Think 100% production, and was used by Climate One with permission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the most common questions people ask about climate is: what can I do? Since time is one of our most valuable resources – and we spend so much of our time at work – changing jobs may be the most effective individual climate action a person can take. Those changes could be big or small: Leaving the oil and gas industry for geothermal, or helping to bring down the emissions where you already work. The truth is, almost any job can be a climate job. But how do people actually make the transition from dirty jobs to clean? What do climate positive job transitions really entail?  Guests:  Caroline Dennett, Director, CLOUT Ltd Arvind Ravikumar, Co-Director, Energy Emissions Modeling and Data Lab, University of Texas, Austin Jennifer Anderson, Carbon Removal Geologist, Charm Industrial Emma McConville, Development Geoscience Lead at Fervo Energy Nathanael Johnson, Electrician For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Climate affects everyone, but not equally. Those affected first and worst are often the same communities that suffer from housing and income inequality, and climate and societal injustice. Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. has made striving for social, economic, and climate justice his lifelong pursuit. Rising to prominence in the Hip Hop community, Yearwood brought like-minded artists and creatives together to advocate for justice with the Hip Hop Caucus by harnessing the power of film, podcasts and comedy. We discuss the role of his faith, his partnership with billionaire Michael Bloomberg, and the underlying belief in our human ability to keep improving that drives his activism. Guests:  Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., CEO, Hip Hop Caucus Jacqueline Patterson, Executive Director, Chisholm Legacy Project For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit has been examining hope and the unpredictability of change for over 20 years. In 2023 she co-edited an anthology called, “It’s Not Too Late,” which serves as a guidebook for changing the climate narrative from despair to possibility. How can we find hope on a warming planet? Guests:  Rebecca Solnit, Writer, Historian, Activist For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laughter can be good medicine, but when is it okay to laugh at something as deadly serious as the climate crisis? Jokes help us remember information that otherwise might not be retained. A snappy punchline can be a powerful way to get a message through to an audience. Comedy can also be a way for performers and audiences alike to cope with a shared societal problem, like climate or social justice. Humor has a way of slipping through our perceived biases and giving us a new way of looking at challenges. How can we all learn to use humor both as a coping tool and a tool for change?  Guests:  Rollie Williams, Comedian, Host, Climate Town Caty Borum, Provost Assoc. Professor, American University For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Disasters caused by burning fossil fuels are becoming more frequent, and in the aftermath of hurricanes, floods and wildfires, federal and state responses are often slow or insufficient. There is a growing body of research showing that neighborhood ties can be the difference between life and death: Socially connected neighbors are less likely to die from excessive heat or other extreme weather events. Community-based action, like mutual aid, can bring resources to people overlooked by overburdened governments. What tools can a community use to prepare for fossil fueled disasters?  Guests: Tanya Gulliver Garcia, Director of learning and partnerships, Center for Disaster Philanthropy Chenier “Klie” Kliebert, Executive Director, Imagine Water Works Amee Raval, Research and Policy Director, Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) Justin Hollander, Professor, Urban and Environmental Policy Planning, Tufts University Reverend Vernon K. Walker, Climate Justice Program Director, Clean Water Action For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For thousands of years, the American buffalo evolved alongside Indigenous people who relied on them for food and shelter, and, in exchange for killing them, revered the animal. For millennia, this totemic animal lived in symbiotic relationship with grasslands throughout North America, then – in less than 100 years – new settlers and hunters brought their numbers from 30 million to the mere hundreds, while in the same era glorifying them as our iconic national animal. It’s a classic and cautionary tale of our ability to destroy the natural world – and potentially, to bring it back.  Guests: Ken Burns, Director, The American Buffalo Rosalyn LaPier, Indigenous environmental historian and ethnobotanist For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Congressman Ro Khanna has made a name for himself as a pragmatic progressive and critic of Big Oil. He grilled oil company CEOs under oath and helped negotiate with Senator Joe Manchin to keep climate policy in the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest piece of climate legislation ever passed in the United States. Despite being one of the more progressive voters in Congress, Khanna has a reputation for coalition building; he got more bills passed than any other Democrat during the previous administration. Now that Republicans control the House of Representatives and are looking to claw back climate provisions of the IRA, what levers can he still pull to address the climate crisis?  Guest: Ro Khanna, U.S. Congressman For show notes and related links, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jane Fonda has spent the last several decades fighting for Indigenous peoples' rights, economic justice, LGBTQ rights, peace, gender equality and more. Now, she is devoting herself to the climate emergency, beginning with Fire Drill Fridays, the national movement to protest government inaction on climate change she started in October 2019. Now, through the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, she is focused on defeating political allies of the fossil fuel industry. At 85, Fonda continues to fight for the most vulnerable among us, consistently pointing out the intersection between the myriad of causes. What keeps the iconic Jane Fonda going strong? Guest: Jane Fonda, actor, activist For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/jane-fonda-lifetime-activism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The climate crisis can be difficult to cover in a way that most people can relate to. The mechanism of harm goes from a person's gas car or stove to the Earth's atmosphere and back again in the form of floods and fires. That's why true stories of individuals and families experiencing the fallout of the climate crisis can be so impactful. They help us relate to each other on a more direct level, the way humans naturally do: person to person. Covering Climate Now Journalism Award winners Naomi Klein and Carolyn Beeler bring those stories to light.  This episode was produced in collaboration with Covering Climate Now. Guests:  Carolyn Beeler, Environment Reporter, Editor, The World Naomi Klein, author, social activist For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/naomi-klein-and-carolyn-beeler-covering-big-ideas-and-personal-stories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re living through a climate emergency; addressing this crisis begins by talking about it. Join us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fourteen years after receiving its permit, the nation’s first new nuclear reactors in decades just fired up in Georgia. Massive, traditional nuclear reactors like this have faced so many cost overruns and construction delays that the investment market for them all but vanished. Despite a handful of recent technical breakthroughs in fusion power, its promise of virtually limitless power remains just a promise. But could a new wave of small, modular fission reactors bring new carbon-free power onto the market faster and cheaper (and safer?) than traditional nuclear plants in time to help the world decarbonize? Guests: Melissa Lott, Senior Research Scholar and the Senior Director of Research at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University Jacopo Buongiorno, TEPCO Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT  Allison MacFarlane, Director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia; Former Chair, Nuclear Regulatory Commission For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/nuclear-option Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since the industrial revolution, the global north has seen massive economic growth. Yet that growth has been linked to increasing greenhouse gas emissions. We also live on a planet with finite resources, so it's hard to believe that we can continue to consume resources and release emissions and not sail right past our collective climate goals. That’s why some people are starting to rethink perpetual economic growth as the best measure of a healthy economy. But what would an economy focused on metrics other than growth look like? Guests: Anuna De Wever, Climate and Social Justice activist Leigh Phillips, journalist and author of Austerity Ecology & The Collapse-Porn Addicts Marieke van Doorninck, Director, Kennisland, former Deputy Mayor, Amsterdam For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/rethinking-economic-growth-wealth-and-health Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stories are the way we remember, the way we share knowledge, the way we play out possible outcomes. Climate fiction imagines dark or bright futures depending on how we address the climate crisis. And there’s a healthy debate about what kind of stories move more people to act: dark tales of a scary climate future or positive versions of a greener, more just world. “I think that if you want to create change in a democratic society, people have to believe that there is actually a threat,” says author Paolo Bacigalupi. Telling inclusive fictional stories of climate realities can also help us process the disruptions our world is experiencing, explore avenues for solutions, and become inspired to take our own form of action.  Guests: Paolo Bacigalupi, author, “The Water Knife”  Denise Baden, Green Stories Project; Professor of Sustainable Business at the University of Southampton; author, “Habitat Man” Tory Stephens, Climate Fiction Creative Manager, Grist This episode also features an excerpt of the audio recording of “The Cloud Weaver’s Song,” written by Saul Tanpepper and recorded by Curio. For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/fairytales-and-fear-stories-our-future Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the build out of infrastructure for electric passenger vehicles gets underway, another segment of transportation is just starting down the road to electrification: heavy duty trucks. It’s one of the hard-to-decarbonize parts of our economy. Right now, nearly all long-haul trucks run on fossil fuels. And if we continue with business as usual, freight will become the highest-emitting part of the transportation sector by 2050. That’s why seven states, led by California, have mandated that an increasing number of zero-emission trucks be sold between now and 2035. What does the road to zero emissions trucking look like?  Guests:  Ray Minjares, Heavy-Duty Vehicles Program Director, International Council on Clean Transportation  Mike Roeth, Executive Director, North American Council for Freight Efficiency Chris Shimoda, Senior Vice President, California Trucking Association Adam Browning, Executive VP, Forum Mobility Rudy Diaz, CEO, Hight Logistics This episode features a freelance piece from Emily Cohen in Wyoming on trucker views on EVs For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/road-zero-emissions-trucking Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This year is shaping up to be the hottest year in 125,000 years. It may also be the coolest year a child born today will ever see. In “The Quickening,” science writer Elizabeth Rush documents her journey to Antarctica's infamous “doomsday” glacier as she contemplates what it would mean for her to have a child at this time of radical change. In “Humanity’s Moment,” IPCC climate scientist Joëlle Gergis wrestles with their own questions of how we can all find enough hope to restore our relationships with ourselves, each other and the environment.  Guests: Elizabeth Rush, Author, “The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth”  Joëlle Gergis, IPCC Climate Scientist, author, “Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope”  For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/audio/navigating-science-and-feelings-destabilized-planet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can you imagine if everything you needed in your everyday life was just a walk or bike ride away? That’s the goal of the 15-minute City, a new name for an old idea. Reducing the need for cars cuts emissions and gets autos off of the roads, which is a boon for safety, air quality and the climate. But, as is often the case, good ideas become a lot more difficult when you have to implement them in real places, with real people, who don’t always share the enthusiasm for the idea. What will it take to make compact, walkable cities a reality in the U.S., where the car is king? Guests:  Beth Osborne, Director, Transportation for America David Miller, Former Mayor of Toronto Justin Bibb, Mayor of Cleveland Henry Grabar, Author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World. For show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the climate movement’s earliest days, young people have been at the forefront of activism. But the first major international climate conferences took place 30 years ago. The first cohort of youth activists are now adults, some with children of their own. The emotional cost of seeing so little payoff for years spent fighting can be agonizing at any age, but perhaps more so for young people who put so much of themselves into the effort. Many youth activists burned out along the way, frustrated by participating in actions that rarely led to meaningful and lasting change. How do former youth activists now view the work of their younger selves? And what advice do they have for the next generation? Guests: Alec Loorz, Writer, Photographer, former youth climate activist Slater Jewell-Kemker, Director, “Youth Unstoppable;” former youth climate activist Victoria Loorz, Founder, Center for Wild Spirituality; Author, “Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred”  Abrar Anwar, Chief Technology Officer, Rebel Force Tech Solutions; former youth climate activist Kyle Gracey, Strategy Consultant, Future Matters; former youth climate activist For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices