Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast

This week we sit down with the CEO of BP, Bernard Looney. Following BP's announcement to be net-zero by 2050 and cutting oil production by 40% by 2030, we talk about the beginning steps to rebuilding trust and what it looks like to transition an oil and gas company away from oil and gas. --- Our special musical guest this week is Gecko: Website | Twitter | Youtube | Instagram --- Keep up with Chri...

It all started one cold night in Paris in December 2008. Two American friends visiting the city couldn’t get a taxi and this frustration inspired them to ask ‘what if’? What if it were possible to order a car ride with a simple tap on your mobile? Since both came from successful San Francisco tech backgrounds, it wasn’t surprising that this personal experience led to the creation of the company th...

With over 80% of people on Earth claiming a religious affiliation, it's impossible to imagine solving the climate crisis without major religions taking climate action on as a spiritual exercise of their faith. and in the US, less than 30% of white evangelicals believe the Earth is warming due to human activity. With only 60 days til the US election, how are evangelical Christians going to vote on...

Ahead of the massive climate demonstrations planned by Extinction Rebellion the first 2 weeks of September, Tom has an insightful conversation with Extinction Rebellion co-founder, Gail Bradbrook on what we can expect to see and how we can get involved. --- Get involved or learn more about Extinction Rebellion: https://extinctionrebellion.uk --- Our full episode with Gail Bradbrook: https://apple....

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery One of the often taken-for-granted and overlooked aspects of climate is our oceans. And by oceans, we mean ocean. One. All "oceans" are part of the same system, and they have been absorbing the heat...

With the US election less than 75 days away, the entire world is watching because the future of the planet is on the ballot. How do we rise in moments like this to be the people this moment needs us to be? How can we face the uncertainty of our future with stubborn optimism to address our greatest challenge, climate change? This week we have a special guest that heavily influenced the idea of "Stu...

This week! 2 Authors, 1 Crisis. Do we have a "Hope In Hell" to survive the climate crisis, or do we have "Reasons To Be Optimistic" in the face of it? We talk with longtime activist Jonathon Porritt and famous model and actress Lily Cole about their brand new books, and find out the role that both rage and hope play in pushing us to ask ourselves in light of the climate emergency, "What are you go...

When a new CEO steps in to their new role at their new company, more often than not they take the company in a new direction. But what happens when you're the new CEO at a company that has 100+ year roots in feminism, pensions, and social safety? Enter Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever. With a company that has its products being used everyday by over 2 billion people, changing direction would be a massiv...

What role does fear play in awakening humanity to avoiding it's own demise? Can fear sustain long-term action and help us avoid climate change? This week we talk the scary bits of climate truth with author of "The Uninhabitable Earth" David Wallace-Wells. He discusses with us the responsibility of communicating the full potential picture of climate change as a journalist, and how more people on Ea...

Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, legal systems around the world are beginning to witness the power of citizens, organizations, and businesses fighting legal battles to protect Earth. But who's side is the law on? This week we talk about how the tides have turned in favor of Earth in court with CEO of ClientEarth, James Thornton. We hear about how ClientEarth is mending the relationship b...

In a world where culture leads politics, what is the role of the artist in political activism? This week, we interview Massive Attack's Rob "3D" Del Naja and long-time collaborator, Mark Donne to discuss intentional, subversive creation in times of COVID. One such timely creation came about last week when Massive Attack collaborated with Mark and our very own Christiana Figueres to create a sonic...

This week, Outrage! and Optimism goes galactic to talk about the relationship between policy and science. In a world riddled by authoritarian divisions and isolating nationalism, how do we bring ourselves and our neighbors to the realization that we are one human race on a fragile planet that we need to protect? Upon her return back to Earth, NASA Astronaut Jessica Meir agreed to sit down with us...

This week, a LIVEstream episode! We were joined by activist and filmmaker, Richard Curtis, for his second time on the podcast! His latest initiative,  Make My Money Matter  is a campaign to shift the £3 trillion invested in UK pensions away from fossil fuels, arms, and meat production over to clean energy, healthcare, and human rights. This initiative is helping vegans not unknowingly invest in me...

Christiana is BACK! We discuss to rise of "stakeholder capitalism" and how it could be a turning point for corporations and countries to #buildbackbetter. Our interview this week is with former CEO of Unilever, Paul Polman. Paul enlightens us on how the private sector has a major opportunity and responsibility to bring back humanity to the core of its driving purpose. We explore his success in tur...

This week on the podcast, we talk about the second most polluting industry in the world, fashion. We talk with President and CEO of Gucci, Marco Bizzarri about why Gucci went carbon neutral with offsets, and how they plan to take their entire supply chain to carbon neutrality without having to pay for offsets. And to achieve that, they've launched both #CEOCarbonNeutralChallenge and Equilibrium. G...

This week, something a little different! For our conversation, we are joined by South African Environmental and Human Rights Activist, Kumi Naidoo. Kumi is best know for his time running GreenPeace International and Amnesty International, two massive organizations that get at the heart of enacting justice in all it's forms around the world. We talk about what kind of leadership is needed in our se...

It's World Environment Day, and what better way to celebrate than with Executive Director of The United Nations World Environment Programme, Inger Andersen. She gives us her optimism about dreaming up the regenerative world filled with biodiversity and a right relationship with nature, as well as her outrage over the social, economic, and racial inequality that pervades our current systems. And wh...

To save the world we need to change the story. Nature and the climate are in crisis. To survive we must use our most powerful tool - communication. Telling these stories can be difficult and dangerous. But done right they can change the world. Join environmental journalist Lucy Siegle (The Guardian, The One Show) and wildlife filmmaker Tom Mustill (Greta Thunberg / #NatureNow & BBC Natural History...

A landmark draft law brought forward in Spain would ban all new coal, gas, and oil projects and bring Spain's carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. Why is right now, in the middle of a health crisis, the right moment for this? We speak to Spanish Vice President and Minister of The Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, and get her courageous reasons. So if oil and gas are being phased out, how do e...

It's International Biodiversity Day and we're celebrating in style! We talk with Prof. Dr. Tom Crowther of Crowther Lab, ETH Zürich, who captured the imagination of the world with the idea that our world could support another trillion trees, and how that could restore a new world through carbon drawdown, create a better world with more biodiversity, provide the roadmap to a regenerated world which...

This week on the podcast we get outraged at the logical fallacies that comprise Michael Moore's new film, "Planet of The Humans" and we call up Jonathan Koomey, Climate Energy Expert from Stanford University to give us an objective look into the claims of this film. In our main interview, we sit down with Jane Fonda. Recipient of various accolades including two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, se...

Outrage and Optimism turns 1! YAY! In true Outrage and Optimism fashion, we give you a different kind of episode. This week we celebrate some amazing moments from the last year together, and we cast a vision for what we hope another year of podcasting will bring us! From Norwegian Musicians to Tom sweating while putting together audio equipment, to a close call almost standing up the Prime Ministe...

HAPPY 1 YEAR!!! To mark the 1 year anniversary of Outrage + Optimism being a podcast, we have on historian, futurist, philosopher, and best-selling author, Yuval Noah Harari! He is best known for his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind . A phenomenal read. Yuval shares with us the power of the stories we choose to believe about ourselves. How good they can be, and how they can also trap us....

HAPPY 50TH EARTH DAY!!! This week we celebrate Earth Day with a return cameo from High Level Climate Action Champion, Nigel Topping. Nigel gives us an inside update on the unknowns of COP26, and gives us an exclusive on how coordination and ambition is going in the midst of the pandemic. And for our main interview - The Great Barrier Reef has sustained a third mass bleaching event in 5 years. Will...

There's a leadership vacuum in the world, and Ian Bremmer, creator of the term "GZERO" has been telling us for years. The US used to play a more pivotal role in world ambition, and in particular, world ambition for achieving the targets of The Paris Agreement. But what do we do when the US has stepped down from that role they played, and what new phase of globalism is now a reality? We ask Ian to...