WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT?

Today is publication day for our favorite climate scientist. Dr. Kate Marvel wrote a book called Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet . Kate is a researcher at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (one of the world’s leading research centers), where she specializes in climate modeling. Although, given the various infuriating, retrograde, anti-climate science shenanigan...

Alexia Leclercq is a face of the youth climate movement — something that, as we discussed, is a tricky thing to be. She is a grassroots environmental justice organizer and scholar in Austin, Texas. Alexia is also co-founder of the Colorado River Conservancy and of Start:Empowerment , an education non-profit that provides students and teachers with an immersive climate justice curriculum. She’s led...

For this live event at the WBUR Festival, Gina McCarthy and I discussed the EPA, the IRA, what’s at stake for us all... and, why we must never, ever pave paradise. Gina led the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President Obama, was president of NRDC, and then, under President Biden, became the first ever National Climate Advisor, setting up a climate team in the White House. Perhaps Gina...

Today’s episode is a very sweet reunion with my former podcast co-host Alex Blumberg. Alex and I co-created How to Save a Planet, which ran for 2 years as Spotify’s flagship climate show. This episode opens with the hilariously unlikely origin story of our fab collab. (Note: When you hit play, remember to also follow this podcast :) Podcast nerds will be familiar with Alex’s work, but for the rest...

A tale of over-ups, poison, sludge, and the last bipartisan environmental issue. They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals by Mariah Blake is a true crime story on the scale of what the tobacco and fossil fuel industries have done to knowingly imperil our health and our futures. But this book also highlights what’s possible when unlikely advocates, regular folks, come...

Today's guest, Sarah Stillman, is a Pulitzer and MacArthur genius award-winning journalist. She founded and leads the Investigative Reporting Lab at Yale, and she's been a staff writer at The New Yorker for about a decade. Sarah’s writing typically focuses on our immigration and justice systems, but increasingly (and in some part due to my nudges), she's also writing about climate change. Sarah's...

Hey there Earthlings. 💛 We’re talking sustainability and fashion, again. It’s a major industry impacting the environment and shaping the cultural context within which we make climate decisions... and I may be overcompensating for having not given fashion a chapter in the What If We Get It Right? book . A few weeks ago, I shared here a conversation on Sustainable Fashion and the Art of Care with s...

This week, I’m chatting with Jainey Bavishi, an expert in climate adaptation and resilience. We cover everything from social aid and pleasure clubs, to recovering from climate disasters, civic infrastructure, why we should absolutely not privatize weather forecasts, and – of course! – what getting it right in coastal cities looks like, in New York City, New Orleans, and beyond. I’m so glad to be s...

What the heck is going on in environmental law right now? Michael Burger , executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University’s has some answers for us. In this episode, we talk federal climate funding, the billions of dollars that are at stake (frozen, impounded, and otherwise), and what’s going on with climate law at the international and local levels. Michael’s...

This episode, we're talking sustainable fashion and the simple joys of care and repair with supermodel, author, activist, and friend Cameron Russell. Also: why stats on the climate impacts of fashion are super sketchy. If you haven’t heard of Cameron, chances are you’ve seen her. As a model, she’s appeared on many magazine covers for Vogue and Elle, and on runways and billboards for brands like Pr...

Greetings, Earthlings! 🌏 Welcome to Season 2 of the What If We Get It Right? podcast. If you’re new here (hi!) let me quickly read you in: I wrote a book called What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures (which became a NY Times Bestseller! 😮). The heart of that book is 20 interviews with people sharing what getting it right on climate could look like and how we can make those visions...

My guest this episode is The Jean Flemma. Jean spent over two decades working on Capitol Hill as staff to members of Congress, making magic behind the scenes over and over again. She is an absolute wizard of ocean and climate policy and the politics of achieving policy change. Jean and I co-founded Urban Ocean Lab , a nonprofit think tank for the future of coastal cities. So you’ll hear a bit abou...

In the last few months, the term “Green New Deal” has been popping up a lot again. And it’s the Trump administration bringing it up — as a boogeyman, as a foil for everything his crew fears about accelerating the clean energy transition. So I thought it would be a good time to discuss: What actually is the Green New Deal? How far have we gotten on implementing the concepts it includes? And why do...

Near the end of my book tour, I found myself gazing up at those large concrete guard lions outside the New York Public Library, astounded to be entering for an event about my book. The occasion was all the more sweet because it was a family affair: I was in conversation with my cousin Steve Connell , whose incredible poem “This Living Earth” appears in my book (and which you get to hear him read i...

I was originally going to title this episode “Facts Matter,” but instead chose the 90s hiphop version of that sentiment, as I’m prone to do. Today, we are peeling back the curtain on how I achieved the maximum possible accuracy and precision in my book What If We Get It Right? : I hired a fact checker named James Gaines . James is a freelance science writer, journalist, and fact checker with a spe...

I am home from my book tour (50 days!) and it feels soooo good. 😮‍💨 Towards the end of the tour, in Detroit, Michigan, I got the chance to sit down with adrienne maree brown . We’d been following each other’s work for years, and it was such a treat to gab and snack and joke in person. adrienne is a best-selling author, activist, facilitator, a songwriter, a poet, and doula. She also has a new bo...

Hi everyone. We recorded this episode before Election Day, when we had no idea what new version of the world this would reach you in. Wherever and however this finds you, I hope you’ll enjoy this sweet and lighthearted conversation with Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, the Georgia-native, social scientist, bestselling writer, strategist, teacher, and dear friend with whom I co-edited the All We Can Save a...

Election Day is TOMORROW, y’all. 🫠 So I thought the best conversation to share with you right now would be one about some of the really important progress the Biden-Harris administration has made on ocean and climate policy. This progress is very much at risk if Trump and his fossil-fuel funded, climate-denying cronies end up back in the White House.  This conversation took place in Washington, D...

This episode is about the importance of home and community. It’s about the role of culture, of traditions, of protecting democracy, and how all of that is woven together in the context of the climate threats that we’re facing. This is a conversation with two incredible and grounded women: Colette Pichon Battle, attorney and co-founder of climate justice organization Taproot Earth , and Jade Begay...

Recorded at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, for the Climate One radio show and podcast, this episode features journalist and environmental legend Bill McKibben, founder of Third Act , and tenacious environmental attorney, Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice . Both are interviewed in What If We Get It Right? , but we covered new ground here, together: fossils for fossil fuels, changes...

I’ve always been impressed with Stacey Abrams from afar, so when I got an invitation to be directly in conversation with her, I was thrilled. In addition to her political leadership, Abrams is also a small business owner, a New York Times best-selling author, and —something far fewer people know — a champion for clean energy and climate justice. In 2023, Abrams joined the team at Rewiring America...

The environmental movement has a voter turnout problem: 8 million environmental voters did not vote in the 2020 election. Eight MILLION! In a presidential election decided by thousands of votes. This 2024 election is similarly, stressfully close. On September 20th, at Bowdoin College (where I teach), I sat down with Whit Jones, founder and executive director of Lead Locally , and Nathaniel Stinnet...

Welcome to WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT?: the podcast! Here, we'll continue exploring answers to the big (huge!) question “What if we get it right?”, beyond what’s in the ( New York Times bestselling!!! 😮) book . Our vibe is to take climate seriously, but don't take yourself seriously. Irreverent, nerdy, soulful, goofy. I’m on a 7-week book tour 🫠 across the USA, and I’m taking you with me: 20 cities...