The Climate Pod

This week, Amanda Litman , executive director of Run For Something , joins the show to talk about why running for local office matters greatly to climate issues and how you can get involved now. We discuss the importance of electoral politics in climate action and what the new generation of activists might mean for the movement. Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel also discuss how democracy an...

Dr. Michael Mann is back on the show! The world-renowned climate scientist and author of the recently released book, The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet , discusses how public opposition to climate action has shifted, the ongoing fight against misinformation, and the choices we have to avoid the greatest crises to come.   Subscribe to our new Substack newsletter "The Climate Wee...

What happens when market-based climate policies meet real world politics? That's exactly what Danny Cullenward and David Victor wanted to explore in their new book Making Climate Policy Work . The authors join the show to discuss the shortcomings of cap-and-trade reforms and how better regulations can deliver solutions instead. Cullenward is Policy Director at CarbonPlan and a lecturer at Stanford...

This week, Tom Steyer is back! We talk about the Georgia Senate wins, upcoming Biden Administration, renewed Trump impeachment calls, and how better leadership sets the stage for a renewed effort for spurring clean energy jobs.  Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel also discuss what a Democratic majority in the Senate means for climate action.  Subscribe to our new Substack newsletter "The Clim...

This week, Michael Grunwald , senior writer for Politico Magazine and author of The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era , joins the show to discuss how the Obama Administration transformed clean energy with the 2009 stimulus package and what President-elect Joe Biden is likely to learn as a result of leading the effort.  Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel also discuss th...

This week, Lydia Millet, author of "A Children's Bible" , a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and one of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year, joins the show to talk about why she wanted to explore intergenerational responses to the climate crisis in her new novel. We discuss coping mechanisms, the role of religion, parenting, and much more.  Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock...

This week, Ian Haney López , author of Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America and Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at the University of California, Berkeley, joins the show (3:30) to explain the race and class narrative, dog whistle politics, and how defeating racism is essential to combat the climate crisis. We discuss strategies for building a b...

America faced an inflection point in the climate crisis in 2020. Record-setting fires and environmental devastation were inescapable sights on the news, as the tragic consequences of a warming planet were on display at home and abroad. Meanwhile,  the COVID-19 pandemic showed us the reality of living under multiple ecological disasters and the murder of George Floyd and ongoing police and environm...

This week, Nathaniel Stinnett , founder and executive director of the Environmental Voter Project , joins the show to answer one basic question: what the hell is going on with environmental voters? Just kidding...kinda. We dig into the facts with Nathaniel to better understand what motivates environmentally-friendly voters, why it matters that many don't vote, and how to build long-term change in...

Catherine Coleman Flowers is the author of "Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret" and the founder and current director of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice. Since 2008, Catherine has been the rural development manager at the Race and Poverty Initiative of the Equal Justice Initiative. She also serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Climate R...

This week, Heather McTeer Toney , Senior Director of Moms Clean Air Force , joins the show to discuss raising the next generation for climate action and the "mom-partisan" approach to the environment. She also discusses her prior work in the EPA, addressing the BP oil spill with the impacted local communities, environmental justice initiatives, and her early days fighting water issues as Mayor of...

This week, Jamil Smith , Senior Writer at Rolling Stone for national affairs and culture and an Emmy winner, joins the show to discuss his piece " Another Reason We Can't Breathe " and the importance of fighting environmental racism during the Biden Administration. We discuss the president-elect's plan, the role of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and how experience with frontline communities s...

This week, Dr. Mark Hyman , author of Food Fix : How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities, and Our Planet—One Bite at a Time , joins the show to discuss how to fix our broken food system, sequester more carbon from soil, and eat better for the planet.  Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel also discuss the 2020 election results and proof that climate organizing and pushing climate ac...

This week, Chris Hamby , New York Times investigative reporter and author of " Soul Full of Coal Dust: A Fight for Breath and Justice in Appalachia,"   joins the show to discuss his new book on how coal companies endangered coal miners and prevented workers from receiving health benefits.  Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel also discuss false promises made to coal mining towns and the need fo...

This week, Neasa Hardiman , writer and director of Sea Fever , joins the show to discuss her ecological thriller film and why she was thinking about the climate crisis while telling the story. We explore how science and scientists are portrayed in film and why environmental destruction can be some of the scariest stories to tell. Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel are also joined by special g...

This week, Sean McElwee , Co-founder and Executive Director of Data for Progress , joins the show to discuss how the political landscape is changing to affect climate issues. How should Democrats talk about fracking? How do we pass progressive climate legislation? What are the biggest political shifts in climate? We dig into it all.  Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel also discuss the better...

This week, Michael Gerrard of Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law joins the show to discuss the changing Supreme Court, Judge Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation hearing and comments on climate change, the EPA, climate liability lawsuits, and how climate action can be accomplished in the courts.  Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel also discuss the rising costs of the Califo...

This week, Dr. Friederike Otto , author of Angry Weather , and acting director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford and co-investigator on the international project World Weather Attribution , joins the show to talk about how climate change impacts individual extreme weather events like wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, heatwaves, and more.  Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Bro...

This week, Zephyr Teachout , Fordham law professor and author of Break 'Em Up , joins the show to discuss how weakened antitrust regulations have led to environmental and employee harm, how fossil fuel subsidies have prevented stronger competition from renewables, and why breaking up monopolies is good for the planet. Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel also discuss the 60 Minutes segment on c...

This week, Dr. Genevieve Guenther , f ounder and director of End Climate Silence , joins the show to discuss how to improve media coverage on climate topics. She tells us what strategies she uses, explains how language plays an important role in climate action, and why her past non-climate career helps her better understand how to communicate the crisis.  Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel al...

This week, Kurt Andersen , best-selling author, co-founder of  Spy  magazine, former editor-in-chief of  New York  magazine, and legendary journalist, joins the show to discuss his new book,  Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America - A Recent History . Kurt discusses how a paradigm shift in recent decades has radically transformed the American economy for the worse and set the conditions to acceler...

This week, Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA) , who represents California's 49th district, joins the show to discuss how Congress should handle the ongoing wildfires, why he's leading an effort to urge more climate change questions at the upcoming presidential debates and vice president debate, and how his experience fighting for climate action inspired him to run for Congress.  Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock...

This week, Zach Carter , author of The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy and the Life of John Maynard Keynes , joins the show (14:58) for a wide-ranging and in-depth conversation on the legendary economist and what a Keynesian approach to green recovery should look like. Would Keynes support a Green New Deal? We dig into it.  Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel also discuss the record-setting h...

This week, Bob Henson gives us an update on the 2020 hurricane season and what happened when Hurricane Laura made landfall last week (3:07).  Then, Vann R. Newkirk II joins the show to talk about " Floodlines, " which looks back on the 15th anniversary of the levees breaking after Hurricane Katrina and the unnatural disaster that followed (32:33).  Co-hosts Ty Benefiel and Brock Benefiel also disc...

This week, actor Rainn Wilson joins the show to discuss his new docuseries with SoulPancake , " An Idiot's Guide To Climate Change ." We discuss how he became passionate about the climate crisis, what he wanted to explore in the series, and what he and the SoulPancake team hope to accomplish with it.  Then, Kathy Baughman McLeod , Director of the Adrienne Arsht–Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Ce...