Podcasts We Love

Malthusian Serve

Earth can sustain life for another 100 million years, but can we?
Radiolab teams up with Planet Money to take stock of the essential raw materials that enable us to live as we do here on Earth—everything from sand to copper to oil—and tally up how much we have left. Are we living with reckless abandon? And if so, is there even a way to stop? This is a conversation that’s equal parts terrifying and fascinating, featuring bird poop, daredevil drivers, and some staggering back-of-the-envelope math.

The Sunday Story: Answering Your Questions About Electric Vehicles

The EPA recently released new rules for vehicle emissions, which will push the auto industry to speed up the transition to electric vehicles. NPR asked Sunday Story listeners to share their questions about EVs, and the response was overwhelming. So, to answer those many questions, host Ayesha Rascoe turns to NPR's business desk correspondent, Camila Domonoske, who covers cars and energy.

The New Yorker: Will Record Temperatures Finally Force Political Change?

Climate activist, Bill McKibben, discusses the summer 2023 weather, which he calls a “truly remarkable moment in the history of the planet.” McKibben joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what’s needed to make the necessary changes in time: an organized climate movement to break the fossil fuel industry’s grip on political power. “There's a very hopeful case for the world that we could be building,” McKibben says. “It's just  we have to build it fast.”

Liz Kunkle—Co-Founder of Go Green Winnetka

 Liz Kunkle, a name that resonates strongly within the environmental advocacy sphere in Winnetka is interviewed. Liz's journey, saturated in various environmental endeavors, stitches together several roles. From co-founding Go Green Winnetka to her latest accomplishment, as the Illinois Environmental Council's first Zero Waste Policy Manager, Liz's  commitment to the environmental cause is undeniable. 

The Sunday Read: ‘What Does Sustainable Living Look Like? Maybe Like Uruguay’

Across the world, developed nations have locked themselves into unsustainable, energy-intensive lifestyles. As environmental collapse  threatens, the journalist Noah Gallagher Shannon explores the lessons in sustainability that can be learned from looking “at smaller, perhaps  even less prosperous nations” such as Uruguay.

The Single Best Guide to Decarbonization I’ve Heard

How big is the task of decarbonizing the U.S. economy? What do we actually need to do to get there? How does the I.R.A. help do that? And  what are the biggest obstacles still standing in our way?

Waste Land

For 30 years, oil companies convinced the public that all their plastic trash could be, and would be, recycled, when they knew it wasn't true.

Green Energy Gridlock

How the green energy revolution may live, or die, by bureaucrats trying to untangle a mess of wires.