Earlier this year, in May, we had Bill join us for a special webinar series we put together in response to the coronavirus lockdown, as we adjusted to life at home. We thought we would bring that conversation to you in this format, and as a way to kick off the fourth season of our podcast.Our conversation was so salient that we decided to make the audio a special edition for our podcast, Cooler Earth. In 2008, Bill founded 350.org, an organization focused on bringing together a movement to end fossil fuels, build community resilience, and address environmental justice issues at their roots. As the world grapples with the intersectional crises that are systemic racial, economic, and environmental injustice, his message on organizing and grassroots power-building is as important as ever. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Cooler Earth

"Be a little less of an individual”

For the last episode of this season, we are doing things differently, Michael Green, Executive Director of Climate XChange is interviewing our host, Maria Virginia Olano. She speaks on the need to more intentionally craft and deliver innovative and engaging communications strategies and messages to move people to action in the climate space. What decisions drove the episodes, the questions, and the selection of guests, as well as what we can learn from the experts in moving the movement and the conversation forward.

E8: "We can't blame our way out of this"

This week on the podcast is John Schwartz, a science writer for The New York Times, focusing on climate change; he provides us with a look into the editorial and journalistic process of covering climate change, which is the story of our lifetime. The New York Times, as have many other institutions made deliberate decisions around this coverage, which include tossing out the idea that there are two sides to this story, and the pressing need to include multimedia and creative visuals to attract new audiences.

E7: "Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater"

This week on the podcast, we are doing things a little differently. Our guest does not work in the climate field, but is the Executive Director of the organization awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016. Beatrice Fihn leads the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the prize for its work in in highlighting the humanitarian cost and consequences of nuclear weapons. Once again this year, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have identified the two most existential threats facing humankind as being climate change and nuclear weapons, for this reason our conversation with Beatrice is relevant, and incredibly useful in how we conceptualize and advocate for these issues.  

E6: "People want to feel meaning"

This week on the podcast, is Susan Joy Hassol, the Director of Climate Communication, a non profit organization aimed at assisting scientists and journalists in communicating climate change effectively and efficiently. She has built a career around the question of how to best communicate climate change, including broad outreach as well as one-on-one coaching. She brilliantly identified the schism between scientific communication and every-day understanding of certain terms, which causes a lot of misunderstanding around climate change.

E5: “Gravity is just a theory too”

This week on the podcast, John Kotcher, Ph.D, a Research Assistant Professor at George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication, where he conducts research on science and risk communication. We speak about the role of academic research in furthering advocacy and informing best practices to communicate climate change in a way that does not aim to scare people, but rather mobilize them into action. Climate change perceptions have shifted dramatically among Americans in the past five years, with a double-digit increase in the perception of this as an important issue. The next step, is how to translate that concern to political action.

E4: “You can’t just scare people into action”

Andrew Jones is an expert on international climate and energy issues, he is a system dynamics modeler, keynote speaker, and designer of simulation-based learning environments. He is also the co-founder and co-director of Climate Interactive. On this week’s episode, he speaks about the motivations that led to him start his non-profit, and why he now understands that we need to go beyond simply showing people the research. After spending his own career as a systems modeler who knew the impacts of climate change in the long term, as well as the limitations in science communication to large audiences, he decided to find a different way. His simulations and tools now reach thousands of people across the United States and around the world, and have inspired them to understand and want to take collective action in finding solutions. 

E3: "Showing people research really doesn't work"

Dr. Atyia Martin is the former Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Boston, and is the Founder and CEO of All Aces Inc. a consulting firm with a mission to further critical thinking in advancing personal and organizational resilience. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Dr. Martin talks to me about the importance of critical thinking and humility in approaching systemic issues such as racism and climate change, and finding our individual roles in perpetuating those systems. This, she believes, is a critical step in beginning to change those systems and organizations that we are a part of. Without approaching the work we do through a lens of equity, we run the risk of perpetuating the systems of oppression that impact the most vulnerable among us.

E2: “If it’s not your struggle it’s invisible to you”

Boston native Reverend Mariama White-Hammond recently started her own congregation in the city, with a hope to make climate justice a central pillar of her message. I talked with her about the role of faith and spirituality in conveying the message about a changing climate, the forces that keep her going in advocating for social and environmental justice, and why to her, giving up is just not an option. 

E1: "We need all hands on deck"

A lot of writing and advocacy on climate change these days gets it right about the risk, but wrong about how we try to accomplish the critical goal of raising public concern and moving people to action. That’s because it appeals to reason, and reason is not what drives human behavior.We are sitting down with experts in field for this new segment of our podcast: Now What? Learn with us from faith leaders, professors, campaigners, community advocates, and other awesome humans doing the work, and get a fresh new outlook of the future and your role in shaping it.

Now What?

Protest is nothing new to France, but over the past month, Paris and some other cities in the country have seen escalating protests, sparked by an eco-tax on fuel due to come into effect in January. Anti-carbon pricing pundits have been quick to point to Paris as a reason why carbon taxes do not work. We think differently, so this week we once again sat down with our Executive Director Michael Green to chat about the significance of the protests in France for climate policy.

Paris Part Deux

What will happen when refugees become more than people fleeing conflict? Climate change is already forcing families to flee their homes due to water scarcity, crop failure, and rising sea levels. It may cause as many as 143 million people to be displaced by 2050. This week we spoke with Erica Bower before her trip to this year's UN Climate Negotiations. She will be beginning a National Geographic Young Explorers Grant in January 2019 to further research a drought-affected Himalayan community in Nepal, and previously worked for the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR in Geneva, focusing on climate-related migration.

The Great Migration

Carbon pricing has been in the news a lot lately. The IPCC even dubbed it a critical policy to avoid the worse consequences of climate change. What most people don’t realize though is that many jurisdictions already live under a carbon pricing mechanism, and that there are many different ways the policy can be implemented. We spoke to Jonah Kurman-Faber, a researcher here at CXC, about what it means to put a price on carbon.

The Price of Inaction

The starkest reality of climate change is that the countries least responsible for emitting greenhouse gases are the ones facing the worst climate impacts. One such state is the island nation of Kiribati, located in the Pacific Ocean, and projected to become increasingly uninhabitable over the next 50 years. We spoke to Janice Cantieri, an environmental journalist and Fulbright National Geographic storyteller, about her work in Kiribati, the importance of storytelling in climate change communication, and local adaptation and innovation. 

Sand, Salt & Sea Level Rise

Is climate action inherently against Republican or business interests? Not according to Claudine Schneider. This week, and for the first episode of our second season, we sat down with Claudine, who was the first woman elected to higher office in the state of Rhode Island, representing the state in D.C. for 10 years and earning a reputation as one of the House’s strongest environmental advocates.

Greening the Divide

Your weekly dive into the latest news and current state of energy transitions, sustainability, environmental politics and all things climate change. Each week we will have in-depth discussion on a specific topic relating to the science and economics of global warming, and feature experts as guests.