In This Climate

When we think of this summer's deadly heatwaves and each rollout of temperature projections, it's hard to argue that there's anything more obviously horrifying. So we wanted to go back through some heat-centric conversations from our archive. They're not not sad, but they all circle around the whys and hows of getting here and being here and going forth. We'll hear about migration histories, parti...

"We do have the technology," Shanti tells Jim in this interview. "What we need to do now is to put in place the policy to enable reaching these goals." Shanti Gamper-Rabindran is the author of America's Energy Gamble: People Economy and Planet and works at University of Pittsburgh to analyze the economic, legal, and political barriers and opportunities for the energy transition to renewable energy...

The people who form Appalachians Against Piplelines have been resisting the Mountain Valley Pipeline and other extractive, environmentally dangerous projects since 2018, continuing the long tradition of care for the earth and all beings among the mountains. In this sound-rich audio documentary about AAP's work, Appalachian-grown filmmaker Laura Saunders brings together the stories of folks who hav...

Over the past three years (150 episodes!) of In this Climate, some themes and lessons have emerged. One of those is the necessity of more sustainable food systems. So, this episode, we're pulling interviews from different moments and tying them together for a multidimensional look at how we grow and distribute and consume. We'll hear about Californian water use, local nutrient cycling, unfair coff...

Wrapping up our tour of community gardens, Curtis Whittaker tells us the story of Faith Farms in the Emerson neighborhood of Gary, Indiana. Over the past nine years, a team from Progressive Community Church has turned a small patch of land into an expansive collection of year-round growing spaces that produce thousands of pounds of produce for a food-insecure community. They've also organized a Ju...

The 2017 and 2024 solar eclipse paths cross over Carbondale, Illinois, a college town in a largely rural region with the highest poverty rate in the state. For some here, in the midst of intensifying climate change and ongoing environmental racism, this moment between eclipses is an opportunity to focus on building dynamic resilience and nurturing community care networks. One element of this resil...

About a year ago, Senate Bill 389 became law, stripping protections for more than 400,000 acres of Indiana wetlands. In contrast, a recent poll commissioned by Audubon Great Lakes reveals that 94% of Hoosiers believe state leaders should either strengthen or maintain Indiana's current wetland protections. So, what can be done? In this episode, we ask why wetlands are important and how we can take...

The 2017 and 2024 solar eclipse paths cross over Carbondale, Illinois, a college town in a largely rural region with the highest poverty rate in the state. For some here, in the midst of intensifying climate change and ongoing environmental racism, this moment between eclipses is an opportunity to focus on building dynamic resilience and nurturing community care networks. One element of this resil...

This series of episodes grew out of our January series on year-round local food, in which Stewart from Cedar Valley Permaculture suggested we can meaningfully shift our food system by growing more of our own food. So how are people making this happen? How are people already coming together to grow both food and new food systems? Throughout this series, we'll look at a couple helpful Midwestern sto...

Chances are, you've heard the famous call of the loon. In this special release, we introduce the work of Indiana University student Mackenzie Bowlen, who has spent the past semester researching the complex vocalizations of loons.

With agriculture accounting for 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, it's easy to argue that farmers need to be involved in our work to mitigate and adapt to intensifying climate change. Hot Farm, a new podcast from the Food & Environment Reporting Network hosted by Eve Abrams, travels across the Midwest, learning from farmers about what they're doing, or could be doing, to improve our rel...

How are Hoosier forests shifting, and what can we do to ensure our cities maintain healthy canopies? In this episode, Jim talks with Burney Fischer, former state forester and co-lead of the Bloomington Urban Forestry Research Group, about the dynamics of urban forestry.

In this show, taped live at Hopscotch Coffee, we talk with Jane Martin, Anagha Gore, and Amy Thompson about the work of ERI and how we can coordinate to improve our relationships with each other and our environment. ERI Crowdfunding Campaign: https://crowdfunding.iu.edu/climate-change-internships Recommended Indiana-Native Plants for Attracting Pollinators: https://extension.entm.purdue.edu/public...

Bridging spiritual ecology with urban forestry, we find themes of emergence and the voice of Kyle Lemle. In this episode, he tells us about fasting in the desert as a teenager, turning guns into shovels, supporting community forestry in Bhutan, and training people of many faiths to know and build collective power. Through these stories and more, he helps us understand how land stewardship and soci...

Here in Indiana, we talk often about wind and solar, but what could renewable marine energy development mean for people from the Hoosier State to small remote island? Andrea Copping, a scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Marine Sciences Laboratory, helps us understand the science, collaborations, and potential of several varieties of marine energy. If you like this, you migh...

Host Gabe Filippelli talks with Paul Harvey about his book and project Plasticology, microplastics in the environment, and how we can deal with our legacy of plastics pollution—which, like most things, is a climate problem.

In this episode, host Gabe Filippelli talks with Laurate Professor Ravi Naidu at the University of Newcastle about environmental contamination, emerging issues, and how to work with industries in a constructive way to help solve environmental problems. 

As institutions of higher education aim to prepare students of sustainability and support environmental research, what are we missing? And what does it take to turn our knowledge of chemistry and physics into new ways of relating with the earth? In this episode, Lissy Goralnik and Laurie Thorp of Michigan State University share what they've learned through teaching with contemplative practices.

We've been talking a lot about ecological anxiety and grief, vague and muddy feelings that they are. In this episode, climate emotions researcher Panu Pihkala helps us name and explore what these wide terms hold. An insightful episode from Panu's new podcast: https://climatechangeandhappiness.com/episodes/episode-03-eco-anxiety-demystified

We talk with Ashlee Cunsolo, f ounding dean of the School of Arctic and Subarctic Studies at the Labrador Campus of Memorial University, about the connective capacity of grief, the role of land in Inuit mental health research, and the relationship between agency and letting go. Ashlee's site: https://ashleecunsolo.ca/

While we're not in the business of pathologizing feelings toward our changing environment, we recognize those emotions can be difficult to work with. So, in this episode, Leslie Davenport helps us understand what climate-aware therapy is, why it matters, and how we can tend the interactions between our brains and the structures in which we exist. Leslie's website: https://lesliedavenport.com/

What if the science story and the emotion story are the same story? What could we do if we were to deconstruct the dualism of feeling and acting? In this episode, Sarah Jaquette Ray and Jennifer Atkinson walk us through their research on and experience with climate feelings, from grief to guilt to hope. We work on understanding how we can engage with emotions together to help us get into ever-bett...

In this episode, Jim talks with Michael Hamburger, a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, about the letter that Concerned Scientists at Indiana University-Bloomington recently sent to University admonistrators. It includes requests for a formal climate action plan and an implementation planning taskforce of diverse stakeholders. We reached out to IU Director of Media Relations Chuck Carney...

Stephanie Kaza—a long-time lover of trees, practicing Zen Buddhist, and environmentalist—walks us through some of the teachings and practices of Zen Buddhism that can help us get into right relationship with the earth and ourselves, which as we learn, are not one and not two.

In this series, we ask, how can spiritual connection with our environment help us enter into right and restorative relationship with the earth, including human and nonhuman inhabitants? In this episode, we ask James Keys about his experience and study of wonder, about the many ways we can access, experience, and use this emotion.