Challenging Climate

Luke Iseman is the founder of Make Sunsets, a recently launched startup that is selling “cooling credits” on the promise that they will release sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere using weather balloons. In this episode, we discuss Make Sunset’s mission to “substantially lower global temperatures,” the details of their offering, the technical challenges for verifying their cooling credits, and t...

Our year-end special celebrates the one-year anniversary of the Challenging Climate podcast. In this episode, Pete and Jesse reflect on the past 25 episodes, whether we achieved our vision for the podcast thus far, how we’ve navigated controversial guest speakers and learning to balance diversity of thought.  Looking forward into 2023, we discuss new topics we want to explore, and old topics we ho...

Dr Patrick Brown is the Co-director of the Climate & Energy group at the Breakthrough Institute and Adjunct lecturer in Energy Policy & Climate at Johns Hopkins University. In this episode, we discuss Patrick’s expertise on the economic impacts of extreme weather, and unpack trends and attributable risk. We then venture into a broader scope based on his essay, ‘The obvious climate strategy...

Our guests are Dr Glen Peters, the research director for the Climate Mitigation group at Center for International Climate Research (CICERO), and Dr Linda Steg, Professor of Environmental Psychology at the University of Groningen.   In light of the recent COP27 hosted in Sharm el Sheikh, we pose the question: is the 1.5 Celsius goal still alive? In this episode, we dissect this complex question fro...

Dr Luke Kemp is a Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge. He has a PhD in international relations from the ANU and previous experience as a senior economist at Vivid Economics. In this episode, Luke sheds light on a surprisingly understudied and overlooked topic – catastrophic climate risk. This episode explores catastrophic and extinction risk,...

Oliver Morton is The Economist’s briefings editor, specializing in the energy business, climate science and policy, and other green issues. He is the author of The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World and most recently The Moon: A History for the Future. In this episode, we discuss ideas from The Planet Remade on climate change and how recent events have influenced our prospect...

Ben Novak is lead scientist at Revive & Restore, where he leads the de-extinction efforts – especially the group’s restoration of the extinct passenger pigeon. He is also the lead coordinator for its conservation cloning projects and Program Manager for Revive & Restore’s new Biotechnology for Bird Conservation. In this episode, we dive deep into the applications of biotechnology in de-ext...

Gaia Vince is an award-winning science journalist, author, broadcaster and speaker. In this episode, we discuss her new book Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval . Vince gives insight on how humanity can plan for and manage an unavoidable climate migration. We also explore methods to restore the planet to a fully habitable state, such as stratospheric sulfate aerosol injection and ir...

Professor Kerry Emanuel is a prominent meteorologist and climate scientist working at the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT. His research focuses on tropical meteorology and climate, with a specialty in hurricane physics. In this episode, we spoke with Kerry about what distinguishes a hurricane from tropical storms and tornadoes, and the dangers these natural hazards p...

Dr Arunabha Ghosh is the founder-CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, and has led CEEW to the top ranks as one of Asia's leading policy research institutions and among the world’s 20 best climate think-tanks. In this episode, we discuss the work that CEEW is involved in and dive deep into the environmental challenges that developing countries, such as India, face.    Links:  ...

Dr Tom Matthews is a climate scientist at King’s College London, specialising in glacier-climate interactions and extreme weather. In Episode 17, we discuss Tom’s exciting fieldwork on Mt. Everest co-installing the highest-altitude weather stations in the world, as well as extreme heat and its impacts on society.  Links:   Tom Matthews’ profile   Two articles on Tom’s expedition to Mt Everest: thi...

Dr Hannah Ritchie is a Senior Researcher at the Oxford Martin Programme in Global Development and the Head of Research at Our World in Data. In this episode, we spoke with Hannah about her work at Our World in Data and her article, "Stop Telling Kids They’ll Die From Climate Change". We discuss her thoughts on what some of the world's most pressing problems are, touching on topics s...

Dagomar Degroot is an associate professor of environmental history at Georgetown University. In this episode, we spoke with Dagomar about historical climatology and how the past can inform us about contemporary climate change. We cover his book, The Frigid Golden Age, and why societies like the Dutch and Thule thrived while the Norse suffered when the climate changed. Dagomar also addresses existi...

Dr. Nils Gilman is the Senior Vice President of Programs at the Berggruen Institute and the deputy editor of Noema Magazine. We speak with Nils about two of his popular articles, "The Coming Avocado Politics" and "The Guns of Warming".  We first discuss avocado politics, what it is and how it manifests in the United States and Europe. The second half of the episode takes a look...

Dr Britt Wray is an author and researcher working at the forefront of climate change and mental health. She is currently a Human and Planetary Health Fellow at Stanford University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Britt’s research focuses on the mental health impacts of the climate crisis and has published popular books such as Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics and...

Mark Maslin is a professor of Earth System Science at University College London and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit scholar. Mark is a leading scientist in past global and regional climatic change and its links to human evolution, and has written dozens of popular science articles and popular books, including The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene (with Simon Lewis) – just out in...

In this episode Jesse and Pete interview each other and look back on the first 10 episodes of Challenging Climate. They discuss their backgrounds, research, and Jesse's new job as Executive Secretary of the Climate Overshoot Commission. They also reflect on how the podcast has been going and look ahead to the future. Jesse Reynolds is an expert in international environmental policy. He resear...

Wake Smith is a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School, writing scholarly articles on the feasibility, costs and governance of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering. Wake also teaches an undergraduate course on climate intervention at Yale University, the syllabus of which forms the basis of his new book “Pandora’s Toolbox – The Hopes and...

Sir David King is the founder and chair of the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge University and the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. Previously he held the positions of the UK's permanent Special Representative for Climate Change. He was also the Government's Chief Scientific Advisor from 2000 to 2007, during which time he raised awareness of the need for governments to act on climate...

We speak with Jan Minx, Head of Applied Sustainability Science at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, and a visiting Professor of Climate Change and Public Policy at The Priestley Centre at the University of Leeds. Jan has published widely on climate and sustainability issues and has a keen interest in evidence synthesis which he developed through his work with th...

We speak with Dr. Gavin Schmidt, climate scientist, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and co-founder of the RealClimate climate science blog. Gavin’s research focuses on understanding the past, present and future of the climate system and the impacts of the various drivers of climate change. In this episode we take a deep dive on the science of climate change covering how it is o...

We speak with Elizabeth Kolbert, a journalist of politics and the environment. She has been at The New Yorker for more than 20 years and is the author of Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future , The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction), and Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change . We dive into how the clima...

Robert Lempert is a principal researcher at the RAND Corporation and director of the Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition. His research focuses on risk management and decision-making under conditions of deep uncertainty. He was also a coordinating lead author on Chapter 1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report on climate impacts. We...

Zion Lights is an environmental activist and author. She founded Emergency Reactor, which calls for greater use of nuclear power, alongside renewables, in order to help eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.  Her books include "The Ultimate Guide to Green Parenting" and "Only a Moment." She was previously spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion. We discuss her transition from Extinc...

Roger Pielke Jr. is a political scientist who writes on a diverse range of policy and governance issues related to science, technology, environment, innovation and sports. He is most famous (or infamous?) for his work on climate change. We cover his Iron Law of climate policy, his views on the problems with business-as-usual climate scenarios, and the challenges of attributing extreme weather. We...