The Climate Pod The Climate Pod

In 2018, economist William Nordhaus won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy model, which was the first neoclassical growth model to incorporate the impacts of a warming planet on the global economy.  While celebrated for its economic innovations, the DICE model and its outputs have been criticized by climate scientists for not adequately considering the devastating impacts that a rapidly warming planet will have on the environment, human wellbeing, and the economy.  Conventional attempts of forecasting GDP impacts of a one degree increase in global temperatures using the DICE model typically produce estimates of little more than a 1% decrease in global GDP. Critics argue that by downplaying the future economic costs resulting from a warming planet, these types of economic models make it easier for policymakers to justify delaying actions now to reduce emissions and slow or even stop global warming.
But in a new paper titled "The Macroeconomic Impact of Climate Change: Global vs Local Temperature", Dr. Adrien Bilal and Dr. Diego Kaenzig unveil a new model to predict the impact that global warming will have on the global economy. Their findings suggest previous studies were significantly off and, in fact, global GDP will be drastically reduced if the planet continues to warm on its current trajectory. Dr. Bilal and Dr. Kaenzig join The Climate Pod to discuss their new paper, how their approach differed from previous attempts at quantifying the economic impact of climate change, and what this means for policymakers.
Dr. Adrien Bilal is an Assistant Economics Professor at Harvard University.
Dr. Diego Kaenzig is an Assistant Economics Professor at Northwestern University.
Read the paper here: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32450
As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.

Over the past five years, there have been several studies showing how the climate crisis is impacting major life decisions.  Whether it’s where to live, how to invest, or what to study, young people today are being forced to confront a climate-worsened future and decide what’s best for their personal situation given the very public failures of leaders to limit global warming.  One particular decision that has received a lot of public attention is whether or not to have a child in the middle of a climate crisis.  These studies are appearing more frequently than ever before as the climate crisis becomes more apparent than ever, but almost all of these studies fail to incorporate how this decision is impacted by the respondent's race.
Dr. Jade Sasser joins the podcast this week to talk about how climate anxiety is affecting some of life's biggest decisions. Dr. Jade Sasser is an Associate Professor at the University of California Riverside and the author of the new book "Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question: Deciding Whether to Have Children in an Uncertain Future."  Not only does this book explore the anxieties and hesitations that people have about bringing children into a world in the midst of a climate crisis, but it also looks at how the climate crisis exacerbates other social inequities and how climate anxiety affects people of different races differently.
Read "Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question"
Listen to Dr. Sasser's podcast "Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question"
As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.
 
 

Popular films have massive influence over our culture. It's where we go to see the biggest stories on the biggest screen. It's where we go to see Nicole Kidman do that weird commerical before the film starts. Movies are really, really important.
So, why isn't the climate crisis, one of the defining issues of our time, on the silver screen more often. That's a question Anna Jane Joyner and Matthew Schneider-Mayerson are investigating. Together, they put together a new report, Climate Reality On-Screen: The Climate Crisis in Popular Films, 2013–22, which outlines how often the climate crisis is showing up in famous flicks and how often we see characters aware of its existence on screen. This week, Anna Jane and Matthew explain their findings, what it means for the industry, our politics, and how filmmakers can do better going forward. 
Anna Jane Joyner is a climate story consultant and the founder and director of Good Energy.  Matthew Schneider-Mayerson is an associate professor of English and environmental studies at Colby College. Read their report, Climate Reality On-Screen: The Climate Crisis in Popular Films, 2013–22 here. 
As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.

The American Climate Corps, an initiative that will employ 20,000 Americans in its first year to combat the climate crisis, is launching this week as the Biden Administration delivers on another campaign promise. Learning from previous national service programs such as FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps and AmeriCorps, the American Climate Corps will give young people the opportunity to learn new skills, build a pathway to a career in the clean energy economy, and earn a competitive wage.
On this special Earth Day 2024 episode, White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi joins us to explain how the American Climate Corps works, how people can participate, and why more money should be invested in growing the program to expand its reach and impact. We also talk about President Biden's Solar For All announcement which will fund $7 Billion in clean energy grants.
Learn more about the American Climate Corps at www.ACC.gov
As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.
 
 
 
 

For years, we've watched as Bill Weir has brought climate storytelling to one of the biggest news networks on television. On CNN, Bill has traveled the world to cover everything from extreme weather disasters to cutting-edge climate solutions. And throughout an incredibly eventful career, he's learned life lessons he hopes his children and others will consider to preserve what we love most on this warming planet. Bill joins the show this week to explain why chose this career path, what he enjoyed most about his early days as a sports reporter and actor, and what he sets out to accomplish every day on the climate beat. 
Bill Weir is the Chief Climate Correspondent at CNN. He’s an Emmy Award-winning journalist, who has reported from all fifty states and more than 50 countries on every continent. His new book is Life as we Know it (Can Be) - Stories of People, Climate, and Hope in a Changing World. 
As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.
 
 

Shannon Osaka has been one of our favorite climate journalists for years. So we were incredibly excited to have her on this week for a wide-ranging conversation on a variety of climate issues - like microplastics, extreme weather costs in the US, and covering climate change as we exceed 1.5 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels. Shannon also explains how she got into climate journalism after studying the science of climate change, how she approaches her work, and the challenges of covering climate in 2024. 
Shannon Osaka is a climate reporter covering policy, culture, and science for The Washington Post. Read her recent pieces we discuss on this week's episode:
Why Americans pay so much more than anyone else for weather disasters
With microplastics, scientists are in a race against time
Earth breached a feared level of warming over the past year. Are we doomed?
Read more of Shannon's work here
As always, follow us @climatepod on Twitter and email us at theclimatepod@gmail.com. Our music is "Gotta Get Up" by The Passion Hifi, check out his music at thepassionhifi.com. Rate, review and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and more! Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Join our Facebook group.