256 episodes

Face the climate crisis head on, but understand that we have the power to solve this. From former UN Chief Christiana Figueres and the team who brought you the Paris Agreement, this podcast about issues and politics will inform you, inspire you and help you realize that this is the most exciting time in history to be alive.

Outrage + Optimism Global Optimism

    • News
    • 4.7 • 406 Ratings

Face the climate crisis head on, but understand that we have the power to solve this. From former UN Chief Christiana Figueres and the team who brought you the Paris Agreement, this podcast about issues and politics will inform you, inspire you and help you realize that this is the most exciting time in history to be alive.

    SOTU: Unpacking Biden's Vision and The IRA

    SOTU: Unpacking Biden's Vision and The IRA

    This week, we bring you a US democracy special, discussing Joe Biden’s energetic State of the Union Address in which climate action played a significant role, and also the new guidelines from the Securities and Exchange Commission, a move which has seen the Commission attract a slew of legal challenges from both sides of the climate divide. The hosts ask: can Biden’s campaign for presidency in 2024 unite the partisan divide around climate change and if not, how can we protect the progress that the IRA has already made in the US in the face of a Trump victory? 
    To help us unpack all of this, we have the force of nature and great friend of the podcast, Gina McCarthy, former White House National Climate Advisor and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator. Today, Gina is a Senior Advisor at Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Managing Co-Chair of the America Is All In Coalition, and a Senior Fellow at The Fletcher School’s Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University. She is also an Operating Advisor at Pegasus Capital Advisors and a Senior Advisor at TPG Rise Climate Fund. She serves as co-chair of the India-U.S. Track II Dialogue on Energy and Climate Change, and on the Board of Directors for the Energy Foundation and the Resources Legacy Foundation.
    Music this week comes from James Hastings with his beautiful song ‘Mother’. James is a singer-songwriter whose unique brand of eco-conscious alt-folk conjures up wild, earthy textures enfolded in ethereal, electronic landscapes.
     
    NOTES AND RESOURCES
     
    GUEST
    Gina McCarthy, former White House National Climate Advisor and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator
    Website 
     
    MUSIC
    James Hastings
    Website | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify
     
    Check out ‘The Forest Sessions’
     
    SEND IN YOUR Q’S FOR NEXT WEEK! - SPEAKPIPE LINK
     
    Learn more about the Paris Agreement.
     
    It’s official, we’re a TED Audio Collective Podcast - Proof!
    Check out more podcasts from The TED Audio Collective
     
    Please follow us on social media!
    Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn

    • 1 hr 4 min
    Female Leadership Can Unlock Systemic Change (International Women's Day 2024)

    Female Leadership Can Unlock Systemic Change (International Women's Day 2024)

    Get ready to celebrate International Women's Day with Tom and Christiana on Outrage + Optimism! We're discussing the fallout from Super Tuesday and the uphill battle for female parliamentary leadership. Plus, don't miss our exclusive interview with the incredible Gaia van der Esch! Tune in for insights, inspiration, and empowerment!
    Gaia van der Esch, is an executive in the non-profit and public sectors, a policy expert and author, and we discuss her book, "Leading Our Way: How Women Are Re-Defining Leadership". She is currently the Managing Director of a large international foundation working across 40+ countries to build a world with zero exclusion, zero carbon and zero poverty. 
    Laura Lucas closes this week's episode with her beautiful song, ‘The Sun Touches Everything’. Laura’s introspective songwriting is delivered by delicate vocals and dreamy instrumentation rooted in a warm, modern take on the indie-folk genre.
    And remember, if you'd like to be part of our miniseries, Our Story Of Nature, Christiana and Isabel will be answering your questions in a special episode on Thursday 21 March. Submit your questions now by emailing contact@globaloptimism.com with 'Audience Q&A' in the subject line. You can send your question in writing or as a video or voice note.
     
    NOTES AND RESOURCES
     
    GUEST
    Gaia van der Esch, CEO, Author of "Leading Our Way", Policy Expert
    Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn 
    Leading Our Way: How Women are Re-Defining Leadership, also available on Amazon 
     
    MUSIC
    Laura Lucas
    Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Spotify
     
    Submit your question for Christiana +  Isa’s Q+A here
    Check out Climate Clock's Gender Parity Lifeline  which tracks the global averages of women in all national parliaments. 
    Learn more about the Paris Agreement.
     
    It’s official, we’re a TED Audio Collective Podcast - Proof!
    Check out more podcasts from The TED Audio Collective
     
    Please follow us on social media!
    Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn

    • 1 hr 15 min
    Farmer Protests

    Farmer Protests

    This week, our hosts discuss the global farmers’ protests, what's behind them, how they are being co-opted by right leaning populist parties as an ‘anti-net zero’ rhetoric and what needs to be done to support both farmers and the planet to thrive. Given how essential food production and distribution is to our survival, this is an issue that needs our full attention and global cooperation!
    Music comes from Olivia Fern with her beautiful song ‘Calling Us Home’. Based in amongst the wild natural beauty of the Lake District National Park in north west England, Olivia’s music is deeply rooted in her connection to the living earth.
    Did our miniseries Our Story Of Nature spark any questions or thoughts for you? We’d love to hear how your relationship with nature has changed over your lifetime, or what impact you think an individual’s relationship with nature has on our global systems, for example. Or if you'd like to ask Christiana Figueres and Isabel Cavelier Adarve about anything covered (or perhaps something you think should have been covered) in the series, this is your chance. Email contact@globaloptimism.com with 'Audience Q&A' in the subject line. You can send your question in writing or as a video or voice note. Tune in for the answers in discussion with Christiana and Isabel on Thursday 14th March.
     
    NOTES AND RESOURCES
     
    MUSIC
    Olivia Fern
    Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Spotify
     
    Learn more about the Paris Agreement.
     
    It’s official, we’re a TED Audio Collective Podcast - Proof!
    Check out more podcasts from The TED Audio Collective
     
    Please follow us on social media!
    Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn

    • 50 min
    The Thorny Issue of 1.5C

    The Thorny Issue of 1.5C

    1.5C degrees is back in the news again as the recent Copernicus report reported that the world had exceeded this politically agreed temperature limit for the majority of 2023. But what does this mean? Do we abandon this target and set a new one? Is it still useful to use this as our north star in tackling the effects of man-made climate change? Is now the right time to start a serious conversation about geo-engineering? Join Christiana, Tom and Paul as they grapple with these difficult questions and their wider implications.
    Our guest this week is Dr. Michael E. Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science, and Director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media (PCSSM) at the University of Pennsylvania. He lends us his expertise to discuss the liabilities and implications of breaching the 1.5 degree ceiling, and what his latest legal victory means for the ‘war on science’.
    Music comes from Luke Wallace with his song ‘Comeback’. Luke is a songwriter, speaker, choral arranger and environmental champion from the Coast Salish Territory known as Vancouver, Canada.
     
    NOTES AND RESOURCES
     
    The O+O episode with Elizabeth Kolbert where we discuss the possible implications of Geo-Engineering explored in her book ‘Under A White Sky’ can be found here.
     
    GUEST
    Dr. Michael E. Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science, and Director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media (PCSSM) at the University of Pennsylvania
    Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube
     
    Check out Dr. Mann’s new book, ‘Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis’
     
    MUSIC
    Luke Wallace
    Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
     
    Learn more about the Paris Agreement.
     
    It’s official, we’re a TED Audio Collective Podcast - Proof!
    Check out more podcasts from The TED Audio Collective
     
    Please follow us on social media!
    Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn

    • 1 hr 12 min
    Our Story of Nature: From Rupture to Reconnection - Part Three - Living AS Nature

    Our Story of Nature: From Rupture to Reconnection - Part Three - Living AS Nature

    This week, Christiana Figueres and her guest co-host Isabel Cavelier Adarve introduce the third and final episode in their mini-series, Our Story of Nature: From Rupture to Reconnection.
    In this episode, Living As Nature, co-hosts and a stellar cast of guests use the pandemic as their jumping off point to unpack how a moment of physical separation, from each other and the natural world, became a strange chrysalis to stronger and deeper interconnections. 
    Contributors from across many religious and spiritual traditions, including Bayo Akomolafe, public intellectual,  and Sister True Dedication,Zen Buddhist monastic teacher  join Christiana and Isabel to discuss how developing a sense of reverence and responsibility for the Earth leads to both personal and systemic transformation. 
    They ask: how can our unprecedented ecological and social crises become an opportunity for the foundation of a new way of relating to each other and to nature? How can we move away from living from nature to living as nature, so that we can grow and flourish? 
    This episode is part of a series that shines a new light on humanity’s fundamental relationship with the rest of nature as key to responding to the climate crisis and to transitioning into a regenerative future. 
    Please don’t forget to let us know what you think here, and / or by contacting us on our social media channels or via the website. 
     
    NOTES AND RESOURCES
     
    GUESTS
    Xiye Bastida, Co-Founder Re-Earth Initiative, Indigenous Wisdom, TIME100Next, UN HLC Ambassador, TED Speaker
    Website | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | TED 
    Janine Benyus, Co-Founder Biomimicry 3.8 and Biomimicry Institute
    Biomimicry Institute | LinkedIn | Twitter 
    Dr. Lyla June Johnston, Indigenous musician, author, and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages
    Website | YouTube | Instagram | Facebook
    Dr. Bayo Akomolafe, Public Intellectual, Author, Professor and Chief Curator, The Emergence Network
    Website | Course webpage | LinkedIn | Facebook
    Sister True Dedication, Zen Buddhist monastic teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village Community
    Twitter | Instagram
    Plum Village
    LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
    Krista Tippett, award-winning journalist, author and host of On Being podcast
    Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
    Arturo Escobar, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
    Wolf Martinez, Diné, Lakota, & Spanish. Two Spirit. Speaker, Ceremonialist and practitioner of Ancient Healing Arts. Therapist. Lover. Human Being.
    LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
    Kate Raworth, Author of Doughnut Economics and Co-founder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab
    Twitter | DEAL Twitter
    Dr. Gunhild Anker Stordalen, Founder and Executive Chair of EAT Foundation
    LinkedIn | Instagram
     
    Learn more about the Paris Agreement.
     
    It’s official, we’re a TED Audio Collective Podcast - Proof!
    Check out more podcasts from The TED Audio Collective
     
    Please follow us on social media!
    Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn

    • 1 hr 7 min
    Our Story of Nature: From Rupture to Reconnection - Part Two - Living WITH Nature

    Our Story of Nature: From Rupture to Reconnection - Part Two - Living WITH Nature

    This week, Christiana Figueres and her guest co-host Isabel Cavelier Adarve introduce the second episode in their mini-series, Our Story of Nature: From Rupture to Reconnection. 
    In this episode, Living With Nature, the hosts share a series of conversations with experts from the worlds of food, the economy, energy and design to illuminate how our man-made systems are rooted in a separation from the natural world. You’ll hear insight and fresh ideas from author Kate Raworth, Founder and Executive Chair, EAT Gunhild Stordalen, energy strategist at Rocky Mountain Institute Kingsmill Bond, author of the Earth Transformed: An Untold History, Peter Frankopan and co-founder of Biomimicry, Janine Benyus.
    With appropriate outrage, Christiana and guests will explore how the climate crisis, the energy crisis, the inequality crisis and the food crisis all share the same deep root: extractivism based on extrinsic principles. They argue that this extractivism not only depletes the planet—the very soil of the Earth itself—it also depletes our human soul. 
    With characteristic and bold optimism, Christiana, Isabel and guests will argue that if we can overthrow the tyranny of GDP, invest in harvesting rather than in extraction, and if we design our world mimicking nature’s genius, we might yet create a future where humans and nature thrive in balance.
    This episode is part of a series that shines a new light on humanity’s fundamental relationship with the rest of nature as key to responding to the climate crisis and to transitioning into a regenerative future. 
    Do not miss the third and final episode, Living As Nature, in which Christiana and Isabel invite listeners to contemplate what it will take for each of us to fully awaken to our interconnectedness as, perhaps, the starting point - the foundational stone - without which no new home can be built for a truly regenerative future. 
    Please don’t forget to let us know what you think here, and / or by contacting us on our social media channels or via the website. 
     
    NOTES AND RESOURCES
     
    GUESTS
     
    Arturo Escobar, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
    Kate Raworth, Author of Doughnut Economics and Co-founder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab
    Twitter | DEAL Twitter
    Krista Tippett, award-winning journalist, author and host of On Being podcast
    Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
    Dr. Gunhild Anker Stordalen, Founder and Executive Chair of EAT Foundation
    LinkedIn | Instagram
    Kingsmill Bond, Energy Strategist at RMI
    LinkedIn | Twitter 
    Janine Benyus, Co-Founder Biomimicry 3.8 and Biomimicry Institute
    Biomimicry Institute | LinkedIn | Twitter 
     
    Learn more about the Paris Agreement.
     
    It’s official, we’re a TED Audio Collective Podcast - Proof!
    Check out more podcasts from The TED Audio Collective
     
    Please follow us on social media!
    Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn

    • 1 hr 3 min

Customer Reviews

4.7 out of 5
406 Ratings

406 Ratings

Prairie Trixie ,

Informed AND Hopeful!

I’m a much much much more informed consumer of climate information because I listen to this podcast. And I’m a much much much more optimistic and thus active citizen because of its uplifting tone—great work!

JNU Mike ,

Favorite podcast

This is absolutely my favorite podcast. The expert hosts, Christiana, Tom, and Paul, interview a diverse set of change makers, and have a good analysis of the latest trends and news, and still have an emotional angle because there are reasons for outrage and optimism. Acknowledging both is crucial for our climate sanity. Thank you!

manoazam ,

Love from Bhutan - Thank you for your wisdom!

I just listened to the episode with Okezue Bell, and he is in Bhutan for the Fab Fest! What a coincidence!

I love listening to this podcast and as a climate worker in Bhutan esp. working within the space of climate literacy, action and young people - I derive much joy and share the same frustrations expressed and channeled so eloquently and realistically in this podcast. I love the chemistry between Christina, Paul and Tom. I am big fan. One of my aspirations is to do a similar podcast to bring Bhutan’s climate stories to the forefront, owning and creating our own narrative esp. the voices and perspectives of the young Bhutanese that make up about 65% of population. Thank you again!

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