Swamped: What Experts Do When They No Longer Know What to Do

On this episode I speak with Vandana Singh, speculative fiction author, participle physicist, polymath, and wonderful person. She discusses how she came to see the enormity of the climate crisis, and  how it transformed her teaching, writing, scientific practice--and life. We also talk about uncertainty, colonization, wonder, and the beyond human world.

Sometimes things literally go off the charts. Especially with the climate in recent years. In this episode Michael Wehner, recently retired Senior Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, talks about why he and his team decided it was time to change the Saffir-Simpson hurricane rating scale. Instead of category 5 hurricanes should now go to category 6, they argue! Michael also discusses...

Professor Sarah Jaquette Ray, Chair of Environmental Studies at Cal Poly, Humboldt knows a lot about climate anxiety and how people handle overwhelm. She is author of The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators and A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet . She has spent a lot of time thinking about  working with people struggling to come to terms with...

Carlo Rovelli is a physicist who asks big questions about the universe, life, love, uncertainty, time, poetry, psychedelics, black holes, and the climate crisis. In this episode cohost Suparna Choudhury and Joshua Moses have a far-ranging and sometimes personal conversation with Carlo. They even get to the root of a 7-year old’s existential terror of infinity…

Most of us find ourselves at points in our lives when we no  longer know what to do. We may feel uncertain, stuck – or swamped. In Swamped , host Joshua Moses talks to disaster responders, scientists, theologians, sanitation workers, poets, teachers, and morticians who face overwhelming situations.  This show is rooted in Joshua’s belief that we have a lot to learn from each other when we no longe...