One Planet Podcast · Climate Change, Politics, Sustainability, Environmental Solutions, Renewable Energy, Activism, Biodiversity, Carbon Footprint, Wildlife, Regenerative Agriculture, Circular Economy, Extinction, Net-Zero

How do some people face incredible tragedies and find within these experiences inspiration to improve the lives of others? Our guest today lost her grandfather, who was the assassinated Prime Minister of the Buganda Kingdom, and her father, who was disappeared by Idi Amin, and yet she went on to become a leading conservationist. Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is Uganda's first full-time wildlife veter...

“Coral reefs are the most biodiverse habitat on the planet, despite covering less than 1 percent of the ocean area, over a quarter of all marine life exists in these rainforests of the sea. And if you think of a coral reef as a rainforest, the trees are the coral themselves. Which are incredible organisms, so, magic is really the right word to describe them. They're these animals that are one of t...

Coral reefs are the most biodiverse habitat on the planet, despite covering less than 1 percent of the ocean. Over a quarter of all marine life exists in these rain forests of the sea. Gator Halpern is the Co-founder and President of Coral Vita, a mission-driven company working to restore our world’s dying coral reefs. He is a lifelong entrepreneur who is passionate about start...

"So I think the first step is definitely awareness. I know when I was the only Black student in my environmental science program, I didn't quite understand why I really wanted to focus on the environmental injustices that were going on in my neighborhood. Or the concept of racial justice was always kind of intertwined with my environmental advocacy. So it's something that I want other communities...

Leah Thomas is an intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator based in Southern California. She’s passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism and was the first to define the term “Intersectional Environmentalism.” She is the founder of @greengirlleah and The Intersectional Environmentalist platform. Her ar...

“So I wrote this book and it was a lot of fun because I had to learn so much. The book examines three iconic teachers: Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus. And I look at how each of those teachers encourage a certain kind of student. The student as follower, someone who will take on the path that you've developed. In the case of Socrates, the student as critical interlocutor or critical conversation pa...

Michael S. Roth is President of Wesleyan University. His books include Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters and Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses. He's been a Professor of History and the Humanities since 1983, was the Founding Director of the Scripps College Humanities Institute, and was the Associa...

"I think the most important thing that I would like young people to know is that they can build their future. That they have the power and they have the agency to shape their future and they have the ability and the power when working with others to have an even broader impact. The thing that scares me the most about the future is when people give up that agency and they let other people design th...

Brian David Johnson is Futurist in Residence at Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination, a professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and the Director of the ASU Threatcasting Lab. He is Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted,  Science Fiction Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction, 21st Century Robot:...

"I'm using ChatGPT Plus, and you can do much better research. I think the scientific possibilities are amazing, and it's a very good research assistant. There are plugins you can use to go through scientific papers quickly. And if you feed it the right sort of data, it has near instantaneous access to a range of facts that helps me in my field. And I think any system that has these kinds of capaci...

Will AI become conscious? President Biden has just unveiled a new executive order on AI — the U.S. government’s first action of its kind — requiring new safety assessments, equity and civil rights guidance, and research on AI’s impact on the labor market. With this governance in place, can tech companies be counted on to do the right thing for humanity?  Susan Schneider is a philosopher, arti...

"People don't change their minds when they hear facts. You're not going to shame someone into action. That's just not that's not going to happen. Stories, and importantly, who is telling that story are so essential. In terms of engaging with science and having a relationship with science, it's critical." " Speaking about theater and climate change, we produced that piece this year. We followed a y...

What is consciousness? The mind produces thoughts, sensations, perception, emotions. How can these inner felt experiences be produced within the darkness of the human skull? Nicholas Bruckman is founder and CEO of People's Television, a production studio and creative agency that produces independent films, and video storytelling for brands. Collaborating with the The Simons Foundation th...

"The current climate situation is so overwhelming to people. This is a scale of problem that we have never encountered before. We talk about World War this and World War that, but this is a global catastrophe that's affecting every part of our planet. And it's, importantly, I think, bigger than anyone can actually take in. And I think everyone has the best intentions of trying to make positive cha...

In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world? April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the col...

"I don't think that there are any more important stories to tell right now than ones with environmental messages. You know, we obviously are beyond this tipping point. We're at a crisis point and allowing people to understand that, not just understand the ramifications, but understand what they can actually do and what life could look like if we did change our behavior and what those steps could b...

Lindsey Anderson Beer wrote and executive produced the hit Netflix original dramedy Sierra Burgess is a Loser before making the jump to direct the horror genre with Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, starring Jackson White and Natalie Alyn Lind. The story is based on an untold chapter of Stephen King's self-proclaimed, scariest property of all time. Up next, she will helm Paramount’s Sleepy Hollow reboot a...

“I want to see movements that embolden our tactics. Like people blocking oil pipelines all over the world. That's what's required now. Asking endlessly from the dominant system to treat us fairly doesn't work. And this frustrating kind of endless appeal and hoping maybe we can get it to work this time doesn't work. And the clock is ticking, especially on ecological collapse. We need to save each o...

 Dean Spade is an organizer, speaker, author, and professor at Seattle University's School of Law, where he teaches courses on policing, imprisonment, gender, race, and social movements. Spade has been organizing racial and economic movements for queer and trans liberation for the past 20 years. Spade's books include Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of...

"So the why really depends on where you are. People are not all the same. There is no such thing as the public. There are many, many, many different publics within a state, within a country, within the world, right? So one of the first cardinal rules of effective communication is know your audience. Who are they? What do they know? What do they think they know? Who do they...

Anthony Leiserowitz, Ph. D. is the founder and Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale School of the Environment. He is an internationally recognized expert on public climate change beliefs, attitudes, policy support, and behavior, and the psychological, cultural, and political factors that shape them and conducts research globally,...

"I was fortunate to be able to visit the original Lascaux Cave in the Dordogne. And in any of these paleolithic caves, we find there are certain themes there that seem to be, as long as humanity has been on planet earth: there's always been war, there's always been migration. There's always been a search for God, a form of worship, and there's always been a fear of the apocalypse, the end of the w...

Ralph Gibson is one of the most interesting American photographers of our time. His international renown is based on his work, which is shown and collected by some of the world’s leading museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the J.P. Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Creative Center for Photography in Tucson, the Museum of Fine Arts...

“Young people who are rightly feeling very anxious about the future of the world, the worst thing for them is to just feel this constant sense of threat and hopelessness. The best thing they can do is to change that fear into anger. However, anger is a dangerous and powerful emotion. And the thing about anger is its purpose in life is as a negotiating tool. So there has to be a sense of action of...

How important is confidence? Psychologists say confidence is a series of mental, physical, and emotional habits that can be learned. What makes some people overconfident while others are realistic about their abilities and why are both outlooks important to succeed in life? Ian Robertson is Co-Director of the Global Brain Health Institute (Trinity College Dublin and University of California at San...