Bridging the Carbon Gap

"Individualism is an ideology. It has gone hyper and is causing great personal, social and environmental harm. If you are feeling this and want to fight back, The Miracle Inn is here for you." Dr. Morgan Phillips worked at the NGO Global Action Plan for 6.5 years, developing a climate curriculum for the school system in the UK. He recently launched his own initiative, The Miracle Inn , t...

In this introduction to our upcoming series of interviews on the role of education in a democracy, Catherine Du interviews four of her ninth grade classmates at Hunter College High School in New York City to find out what they think of the education on climate change they've received so far. Send us Fan Mail

Dr. Jyoti Mishra is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and in this episode she describes how we may reshape society to cope with the climate crisis. We learned about Dr. Mishra's work first from an article she co-authored in Nature , "A mental health focus to amplify climate resilience actions" (for which her co-authors...

Eugene Kirpichov, a former software engineer at Google, describes why he and his colleague Cassandra Xia left their positions at Google to create Work on Climate , a rapidly growing nonprofit aimed at mobilizing the talent that can build a regenerative green economy.  Kirpichov calls for redesigning the economy so that all activities will contribute to the health of the entire system. For those se...

Mark Gongloff is a Bloomberg Opinion editor and columnist covering climate change. He previously worked for Fortune.com, the Huffington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Every week his climate column sends a stark, realistic viewpoint on the urgency of climate change action through the world’s 355,000 Bloomberg Terminals , the principal trading tool for people working in finance. New York City hig...

Georgia Silvera Seamans, an urban forester, and Giulia Di Vincenzo, a high school student, explore the treescape of Washington Square Park, a public park in New York City that has been famous as a cultural center and gathering place for over a century. Georgia gives Giulia a tour of the trees, giving insights on ecological and social benefits of nature in cities. For this episode, video clips for...

Dr. Sam Stephenson has just completed his PhD in Energy, Climate, and Net Zero Policy in the Department of Engineering, Cambridge University. In this episode, Sam describes a benchmark report from the UK government-funded research group he worked with at Cambridge, known as UK FIRES. The report, Absolute Zero , and others from UK FIRES can be downloaded here: https://ukfires.org/impact/publication...

Pete Sikora is the Climate & Inequality Campaigns Director at New York Communities for Change (NYCC) . Before a big mayoral election in New York City, Pete sat down to talk with high school students Helena Rambler, David Case, and Pierce Siegel in Cobble Hill Park on a sunny Saturday afternoon.  Pete explains NYCC's endorsement of mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, based on Mamdani's...

Ellie Johnston is the Director of Programs at Climate Interactive , an organization that builds online simulators to let anyone test out the most effective strategies to limit climate change. Johnston also happens to live in Asheville, North Carolina, a city that bore the full brunt of flooding from Hurricane Helene in late September, 2024. In our interview, which took place two months after the s...

Helena Rambler, a high school junior, and Adam Aron , a professor of psychology at the University of California San Diego, discuss the emotional challenges of addressing climate change. Adam shares his journey from his rise in the field of cognitive neuroscience, to his growing concern about climate change, and then to his surprising career switch to learn, and teach, what makes movements effectiv...

Gail Whiteman is a Professor of Sustainability at the University of Exeter Business School, and a social science expert on how decision-makers make sense of systemic global risks from climate change and other environmental threats. Since 2012, Whiteman is the Professor-in-Residence at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and is actively involved in building science-based targets...

Mariana is an organizer with Climáximo , a climate justice direct action group in Portugal.  Cindy Ye and Adeline Sauberli, seniors at Stuyvesant High School, and Helena Rambler, a junior at Hunter College High School, spoke to Mariana on November 17, 2024: after the US election which brought Trump back into the White House, and before the fires in Los Angeles. Mariana describes the anxiety about...

Carolyn McGrath and Kate Schapira co-authored An Educator's Guide to Climate Emotions , a project from the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America. "The human-driven processes and impacts of climate change are disrupting young people’s lives and are putting their homes, institutions, and physical and mental health at risk. While young people may not always talk about these experienc...

Dr. Christopher Shaw is an independent climate communications expert. Chris was previously Head of Research at Climate Outreach , where among the reports he worked on is the IPCC handbook for climate scientists on how to communicate effectively . Chris is also author of the book Liberalism and the Challenge of Climate Change . ( London: Routledge 2023) From the publisher's website: "In t...

Dr. Gianluca Grimalda was fired by his employer, a German research institute, after refusing to travel by plane for his return from Papua New Guinea, where he was conducting research on the social impacts of climate change. To reduce his own carbon footprint Dr. Grimalda instead chose to make his way back to Germany by ferry and then overland, a trip that took 72 days, but saved 9/10ths of the emi...

With Troy Vettese, Drew Pendergrass is the co-author of the book Half-Earth Socialism , which comes with a free online video game, play.half.earth . Pendergrass graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 2020 with a BA in Physics and Mathematics and a minor in English, and is now doing his Ph. D in Environmental Science and Engineering at Harvard's Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sci...

While working at the consulting firm KPMG , the econometrician Gaya Herrington undertook an update of the social and environmental projections in the 1972 MIT report "Limits to Growth." Her research formed her thesis for her Masters in Sustainability at Harvard, and then gained attention in the press after being published in 2020. In this episode, Gaya describes her path to studying sust...

Alice Hu works with New York Communities for Change and has participated in several of their most visible actions, including storming the Hamptons with plastic pitchforks to call attention to the enormous carbon footprints and destructive investments of the billionaires that vacation there. Hu also joined with fellow protestors to visit a live broadcast of the morning show The View and interrupt T...

Julien Dossier is an expert in climate policy and the co-author of the 2017 carbon neutrality plan for Paris . He founded Quattrolibri , a consulting firm that designs low carbon transition strategies for clients. His current project is a book and a program, Renaissance Ecologique , for which he created a modern version of a 14th century Italian fresco to give us a view of what an ecological Renai...

Rebecca Willis is a Professor in Energy & Climate Governance at Lancaster Environment Centre , where she leads the Climate Citizens   project. In 2020 she was an Expert Lead for Climate Assembly UK , the Citizens’ Assembly established by the UK Parliament. Rebecca is a Trustee of the New Economics Foundation and an adviser to the National Lottery’s Climate Action Fund . She features on the Wom...

In the first episode of the second season, Daniel Shneider and Ajani Stella, students at Hunter College High School in NYC, talk to Dr. Stuart Capstick, Deputy Director of the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST Centre). Dr. Capstick researches public understanding of climate change, and the ways in which citizens’ involvement can lead to action. He co-leads a research theme...

In this episode, we join Professor Kim Nicholas of Lund University's Centre for Sustainability Studies to talk about her work and experiences as a climate researcher and activist. Dr. Nicholas is an expert on high impact actions one can take to reduce one’s carbon footprint. We also talk to her about her earlier research on wine, as a Californian from Sonoma Valley with a Stanford PhD focused...

In this episode, we speak with David Bookbinder of the Niskanen Center, who as Sierra Club's Chief Climate Counsel initiated Massachusetts v. EPA , the foundational climate law in the United States. We talk about how a climate change-focused high school curriculum could be built, shifting our attention away from specific degree targets, and instead thinking about how education can help change...

In this episode, we speak with Rosemary Randall, a British psychotherapist who researches how people respond emotionally to information about climate change. With Andy Brown, Randall developed the award winning Carbon Conversations project which uses a psychological, small-group approach to helping people reduce carbon emissions. Gabriel, Kevin, and Adam talk about their personal feelings about th...

In this episode, we speak to Dr. Radley Horton of Columbia University about the danger of high wet bulb temperatures, which happen when heat waves and high humidity combine . We go into the impact of rising temperatures on different geographical locations, and how increasing temperatures can impact people living in certain parts of the world. In addition, we touch on the problem that wealthy count...