Climify Climate Designers

Series 1: Lifestyle as Systems Change
The guests in our lifestyle series are all “walking the walk.” They have integrated climate consciousness into their everyday lives and ways of being. For these experts, climate action is not a discrete choice, but an intrinsic part of their lives. From them, we can learn how to transform our own practices and mindsets to be mores sustainable and future-focused.
In this episode, Kobi Naseck shares with Eric his journey as a climate activist and community organizer and how all of us can find a place in the climate justice movement. He discusses his work with VISIÓN (where his goal is to end neighborhood oil drilling), why abolition and climate justice are intertwined, the current state of climate justice in California, why our elected officials won’t save us, and how to measure success in the climate justice movement.

In this episode, Emma Askew shares with Eric why and how, at 22, she founded Earth Minutes, an organization that specializes in environmental communication and on a mission to drive the future of environmental thinking and learning. Emma details her definition of a system (and how to change it), sustainable design tips, and why putting your hands in the dirt regularly can help your mental health. She argues (with science to back it up) that purposeful time in Mother Nature will not only help your health, but give you more clarity about why better coexisting with her will help us all thrive now and into the future.

Our Second Crossover Episode with Climate with Kiama! As we are one week away for the launch of the next season of Climify, we thought it would be nice to continue to provide climate education and action through the work of some of our friends. So today, we invited a kindred spirit podcast Climate with Kiana to our platform to share climate solutions through a framework of joy and justice. The host of Climate with Kiana is Kiana Michaan, a renewable energy professional and climate justice organizer based in New York City.

We're excited to let you know that season four of Climify is recorded and ready for launch on June 13th, 2024. This season, we're doing things a bit differently, which we feel will make the program more inspiring and actionable. The theme for this season is “Change the System.”
Climate change can be quite an overwhelming issue. There are so many things to be worried about and they seem to be happening all at once. This can make us feel anxious or depressed, sad, or apathetic. How can one person make a real difference? The truth of the matter is that little things can help, and our guests this season prove that. Small steps can indeed create a ripple effect leading to bigger impacts. Our guests are involved in various action levels from daily life to work, and even those who influence national policies. We will learn what has worked for them and how you can implement climate solutions in your home, design studio, or curriculum to contribute to climate action.
Besides our amazing guests in each episode, I'll be joined by new voices from the Climify team – Bhavna, Jacqui, Cam, and Abigail to make sense of the discussion and provide tools to help with the climate calls to action from the conversation with the guest.
I'm truly looking forward to this season and hearing from you. How are you changing or disrupting the system for climate action? We're all in this together. So see you on June 13th, 2024. Tune into Climify on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- Eric Benson

Climify Producer Cam Burkins rejoins Dr. Melinda Adams to go deeper into her life and work. In particular, this episode explores solastalgia (or climate anxiety) and soliphilia (cures or mitigation methods against that anxiety). Melinda shares Traditional Ecological Practices that provide hope for our collective future, which will surely be Matriarchal!

How do we learn from the land and its lineage?
In this special bridge episode, Dr. Melinda Adams—Indigenous scholar, ecologist, and cultural fire practitioner—explores how place-specific, Indigenous-led practices are the key to stewarding and restoring our shared lands. Dismantling the rhetoric of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), Adams teaches a more actionable approach to controlled burning—Humble Fire—that reframes fire as a “more-than-human relative,” from which we must actively listen and learn. This “storytelling on the land” calls us to defer to Indigenous ways of being in our interventions and return to the land, assessing how our ancestor responds and applying what we learn to ensure our collective future.