Climate One

Can oil companies reinvent themselves as clean energy providers? John Browne attempted it over more than a decade as CEO of British Petroleum, where he led the company's “Beyond Petroleum” rebranding campaign. In his new book, Make, Think, Imagine: Engineering the Future of Civilization, Browne argues that the solution to reducing emissions and addressing climate change is a mass deployment of engineered technology — and that the tools we need to get there already exist. Join us for a conversation on the potential of energy incumbents to become innovators. Visit climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts for more information on today's episode. Guest: Lord John Browne, Former CEO, British Petroleum; Author, Make, Think, Imagine: Engineering the Future of Civilization This program was recorded at the Commonwealth Club of California on October 30, 2019.

California has long led the country in environmental action. It established strong automobile emission standards; it preserved fragile lands from development; it set energy efficiency standards for buildings and appliances. But as climate change fuels megafires across the state and the state’s largest electric utility shuts off power to more than a million residents, can the state’s legacy of environmental leadership save it from climate disaster? In a state already accustomed to swinging wildly between drought and flood, what will become of the California dream? Visit climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts for more information on today's episode. Guests: David Vogel, Professor Emeritus of Business and Politics, UC Berkeley; Author, California Greenin’ How the Golden State Became an Environmental Leader Huey Johnson, Founder, The Trust for Public Land; former California Secretary of Natural Resources. Jason Mark, Editor, Sierra Magazine; Author, Satellites in the High Country: Searching for the Wild in the Age of Man Mark Arax, Author, The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California Diana Marcum, Reporter, Los Angeles Times Faith Kearns, Scientist, California Institute for Water Resource This program was recorded at the Commonwealth Club of California on July 24, 2018 and July 17, 2019.

America’s most popular alcoholic beverages are about to take a hit from climate. Mild, sunny growing conditions have made California king of a $62 billion wine industry, and more than 7,000 breweries in the U.S. rely on barley, a key ingredient in beer that is partial to the cool temperatures of northwestern states and Canada. But both grapes and barley are sensitive to a changing climate. And years of disruptions from drought, fires, and rising temperatures have brewers and winemakers wondering: will business as usual survive into the next generation? Visit climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts for more information on today's episode. Guests: Esther Mobley, Wine Critic, The San Francisco Chronicle Dan Petroski, Winemaker, Larkmead Vineyards Katie Wallace Director of Social & Environmental Impact, New Belgium Brewing This program was recorded at the Commonwealth Club of California on October 15, 2019.

Cities around the world are bracing for a growth spurt. With over half of the global population living in urban centers, and another 2.5 billion expected to join them by 2050, it’s time to rethink the traditional car-centric cityscape. How do we redesign our cities to withstand the challenges of cars, climate change and rapid population growth? This week on Climate One, one of our favorite summer 2019 episodes on building sustainable cities that make public life healthier, more inclusive and more dynamic. Visit climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts for more information on today's episode. Guests: Liz Ogbu, Founder and Principal, Studio O Laura Crescimano, Co-Founder/Principal, SITELAB Urban Studio Jan Gehl, Architect and Founding Partner, Gehl Architects, author, “Cities for People” (Island Press, 2010) This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of San Francisco on June 3, 2019 and first broadcast on July 12, 2019.

The jury is out on whether our legal system is equipped to deal with climate change. While some parts of the country are inundated by floods, others are resisting the growth of oil and gas infrastructure — and both are running into the law. Do youth have a constitutional right to a clean environment? At what point should disaster preparedness become disaster law? Does water have legal rights? A discussion on how many facets of the climate challenge are pushing, and changing, the law. Visit climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts for more information on today's episode. Guests: Michael Gerrard, Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Law School Laura Tuggle, Executive Director, Southeast Louisiana Legal Services Tanisia Reed Coachman, Resident, Arbor Court Apartments Nicholas Kusnetz, Reporter, InsideClimate News Portions of this program were recorded at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco.

From the Amazon to the Congo to California, our planet’s forests are being decimated. And along with them, the stability of our climate. Why? Because trees are among our most effective weapons against carbon emissions. The Amazon alone is responsible for removing five percent of the world’s 40 billion tons of CO2 emissions from the air each year. When forests burn, carbon storage is lost -- along with biodiversity, indigenous culture, and more. Join us for a conversation about the climate factors and the global consumerism driving deforestation, as well as the seeds of change being planted by organizations, corporations, governments and individuals. Guests: Paul Paz y Miño, Associate Director, Amazon Watch Tara O’Shea, Director of Forest Programs, Planet Corey Brinkema, President, Forest Stewardship Council U.S. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on September 24, 2019.

Is clinging to habits and cravings destroying our future? An outspoken critic of factory farming and animal-centric diets, Jonathan Safran Foer writes that stopping climate change begins with a close look at what we eat — and don’t eat — at home for breakfast. At the office, industry leaders like Google are taking steps toward veggie-forward diets by reducing meat, rather than cutting it out entirely. But when it comes to global food habits, are societies up for changing norms — individually and collectively — at a scale ambitious enough to meet the challenge? Guests: Jonathan Safran Foer, Author, "We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast" Helene York, Chief Procurement Officer, Guckenheimer Enterprises; Faculty Member, Food Business School, Culinary Institute of America For more information on this episode, visit climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts. This program was recorded at the Commonwealth Club of California on September 24, 2019.

Is clinging to habits and cravings destroying our future? An outspoken critic of factory farming and animal-centric diets, Jonathan Safran Foer writes that stopping climate change begins with a close look at what we eat — and don’t eat — at home for breakfast. At the office, industry leaders like Google are taking steps toward veggie-forward diets by reducing meat, rather than cutting it out entirely. But when it comes to global food habits, are societies up for changing norms — individually and collectively — at a scale ambitious enough to meet the challenge? Guests: Jonathan Safran Foer, Author, "We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast" Helene York, Chief Procurement Officer, Guckenheimer Enterprises; Faculty Member, Food Business School, Culinary Institute of America For more information on this episode, visit climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts. This program was recorded at the Commonwealth Club of California on September 24, 2019.

Can we still find happiness in our daily lives without ignoring the dark reality of climate chaos? Author and meditation teacher Mark Coleman recalls experiencing just that juxtaposition of joy and sadness working on an article on a ridgetop north of San Francisco during the wildfires of late 2018. “It was just such a poignant moment of going into nature for refuge and solace and at the same time being reminded of the fires and the climate crisis,” Coleman says, noting the irony that he the article he’d been asked to write was about meditation and nature. Love and grief are at the center of Coleman’s practice for coping with climate anxiety. “We love this planet, we love this Earth, we love all of the abundance and the beauty and the diversity and complexity,” he explains, “[and] because we love, we feel the pain we feel the grief. The grief is a natural, healthy immune system response to a problem.” Mica Estrada, a professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California San Francisco, agrees that feeling grief is a valuable coping mechanism – even if it hasn’t always been encouraged. “I think for a long time that [grief] was seen as a weakness and I think we’re finally hitting an age where grief is seen as a strength,” she says. “I think we have lived in a time when the dominant culture says don’t feel too much. And I do feel like we’re finally growing up and saying listen, real strength is being able to feel what we’re feeling.” Guests: Mark Coleman, Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher; Author, Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery Mica Estrada, Associate Professor, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, UCSF This program was recorded at the Commonwealth Club of California on September 5, 2019.

Scientist Terry Root’s research has helped reveal how climate change puts bird and animal species at risk for extinction. For Root, the climate connection is also personal: she was married to the late Steve Schneider, a Stanford professor and pioneer in communicating the impacts of climate change, who died suddenly in 2010. “It's been a fabulous career, but it has been very painful at times, very painful,” says Root, who was the lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change in 2007 when it was co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Al Gore. This piece is published in partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. Guest: Terry Root, Senior Fellow Emerita, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University

Climate change is upending Miami’s real estate markets, turning one of its poorest neighborhoods into some of the most desirable real estate around. It’s a phenomenon known as “climate gentrification,” a term coined by urban studies professor Jesse Keenan. In a 2018 paper, Keenan writes that while gentrification is most often driven by supply – that is, a surplus of devalued property that invites development and transformation – climate gentrification is the opposite. “[It]is really about a shift in preferences and demand function,” says Keenan. “And that's a much broader phenomenon in terms of geography and physical geography or markets in some markets than any kind of localized gentrification in a classic sense.” In other words, as people are attracted to areas of lower vulnerability, developers see an opportunity to make a killing. Valencia Gunder, a community organizer and climate educator in Miami, recognizes the irony. She says that in that city’s earliest days, Haitian, Bahamian and Caribeean immigrants were barred from living in the tony beachfront areas. “Black people had to live in the center of the city, which is different than most America, because usually low income black communities are in lower lying areas…and so everything they did that they thought they were doing to hurt us, actually ended up helping us in the long run.” But there’s only so much Little Haiti to go around. As longtime residents are being priced out of their community, climate change isn’t helping matters. “Once the water comes in, Little Haiti will be beachfront property,” Gunder predicts. “Bottom line, it’s gonna be beachfront property, it’s going to be the new shore. So it's become like the hottest toy on the shelf.” Guests: Valencia Gunder, Founder, Make the Homeless Smile Jesse Keenan, Lecturer, Harvard University Graduate School of Design Guy Williams, President and CEO, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice Portions of this program were recorded at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco.

In 1995, Ben Santer authored one of the most important sentences in the history of climate science: “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” While one of the first statements to identify humans’ role in driving climate change, the vitriol that followed was personal and malicious, impacting both Santer’s career and family. “If you spend your entire career trying to advance understanding, you can't walk away from that understanding when someone criticizes it or criticizes you,” says Santer, now a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Berkeley. With his research contingent upon government funding, Santer is concerned about the future of climate science under an administration that does not prioritize it. This piece is published in partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. Guests: Ben Santer, Climate Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Related Links: At Hot Center of Debate On Global Warming (New York Times) Yes, humans are causing climate change. And we've known for 40 years. (Popular Science)

Can we beat the traffic by taking to the skies? For more than a century, the automobile has ruled our city streets, chaining us to grid-shaped streets choked with lines of traffic. And for many of us, seemingly endless hours of daily commuting. “But what if we can remove those chains?” asks JoeBen Bevirt of Joby Aviation. “What do our lives, what do our cities, how does the world look 20 years from now or 50 years from now? That's what gets me up everyday. “So my mission is to save a billion people an hour a day in their daily commutes.” The ability to sail above the freeways in a flying car, getting to work in minutes instead of hours, has long been the stuff of science fiction. But JoeBen Bevirt is already on his way towards making it a reality. He’s raised more than $100 million to develop a five-seater that he claims will be faster, cheaper and quieter than helicopters. And not just as a plaything for the rich, Bevirt promises. “We really want to be able to launch this at an affordable price point that’s accessible to everyone,” he says. “That is similar cost to taking a taxi on a cost per passenger mile. And then our ambition is to get it to the cost of personal car.” Other startups around the world are also developing drones or flying cars. Urban air mobility – or UAM -- is coming. For now, there are still many challenges to getting those flying cars off the ground, from infrastructure to regulatory issues, from air traffic to zoning. Not to mention mechanics and design – what will the flying car of the future look like? Auto industry consultant Charlie Vogelheim says what comes to mind for most consumers is a cross between the Jetson’s family-sized space capsule and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. “The thing that people keep thinking about when they think about flying cars is, ‘where is that car that I can drive and then the wings come out?’” Guests: JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO, Joby Aviation Uma Subramanian, CEO, Aero Technologies Jennifer Richter, Partner, Akin Gump CharlieVogelheim, Principal, Vogelheim Ventures Related Links: Air-Taxi Startup has a Working Prototype (Bloomberg) How Airbus is working to take urban mobility airborne (Pitchbook) Bringing Urban Mobility into the Third Dimension (Urban Future) This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on August 20th, 2019, and was made possible by the ClimateWorks Foundation.

From stadiums packed with energetic fans to food, beer, and waste, athletics can have a big carbon footprint. But could the core values of athletics — integrity, teamwork, and commitment — be the same values we need to tackle the climate challenge? Guests: Dusty Baker, Special Advisor, San Francisco Giants Roger McClendon, Executive Director, Green Sports Alliance Jim Thompson, Founder, Positive Coaching Alliance.

Carbon offsets have been called everything from a band-aid solution to “the best thing a consumer can do right now.” A new service even offers customers a monthly subscription to offset their carbon footprint. Meanwhile, offset providers are scrutinized for transparency, and purchasers are criticized for using them as a get-out-of-jail-free card. In the race to bring carbon emissions to zero, are offsets a legitimate tool, or a delusion that allows heavy emitters a way out of taking real action? What impact does purchasing offsets have on poorer communities?