Episódios

  • The Climate Crisis Is Breaking Insurance

    The Climate Crisis Is Breaking Insurance
    Apr 4 2025
    Thousands of people lost their homes in the Los Angeles wildfires. Now, they’re looking to their insurance companies to help them rebuild. But as the world warms, disasters like these are becoming more frequent and more severe, exposing an insurance system that isn’t equipped to cover the rising damages. In Los Angeles, people who lost everything were left to fend for themselves. This is just the latest example of how insurance is failing to keep up with climate change. In this episode of A Matter of Degrees, we’re joined by Dave Jones, California’s Insurance Commissioner from 2011 to 2018 and the current Director for the Climate Risk Initiative at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment. We dive into how the climate crisis is breaking our home insurance system, what we can do to fix it, and how to make fossil fuel companies pay their fair share.
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    36 minutos
  • Presenting: L.A. Wildfires: Rebuilding for a Hotter, Drier Future

    Presenting: L.A. Wildfires: Rebuilding for a Hotter, Drier Future
    Jan 23 2025
    This week we are sharing a special bonus episode from Boiling Point, a new podcast produced by the LA Times and hosted by climate columnist Sammy Roth. This new audio series explores how climate change is impacting California and the American West. The first episode focuses on the recent wildfires in Los Angeles and what they mean for the future of the city. Sammy talks with Kelly Sanders, an engineering professor at USC and former White House advisor on energy policy, about how Los Angeles can look at resilience as it builds back. Boiling Point is an LA Times Studios podcast and releases new episodes every Thursday.
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    39 minutos
  • Leah Stokes: 2024 Schneider Award Winner

    Leah Stokes: 2024 Schneider Award Winner
    Jan 10 2025
    In this episode of A Matter of Degrees, we partner with Climate One to share an inspiring conversation between Dr. Leah Stokes and Greg Dalton, the founder and co-host of Climate One, when Leah received the 2024 Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication in December. And as a double feature, this episode also includes a conversation between writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit and Climate One co-host Ariana Brocious from 2023. This episode was also released on the Climate One podcast.
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    52 minutos
  • Cleaning Up Industry

    Cleaning Up Industry
    Dec 19 2024
    The industrial sector makes all of our physical stuff – the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the buildings we live in, and much more. It’s also one of the biggest sources of U.S. climate pollution. In this episode of A Matter of Degrees, we bring on guest host Dr. Eric Masanet, world-leading industrial decarbonization expert, to break down how we can clean up this sector. We are also joined by Rebecca Dell, the Senior Director of the Industry Program at the ClimateWorks Foundation, Nick Santero, the Sustainability Science Team Lead at Rivian, and Yinka Bode-George, the Founder, President, and CEO of Sustain Our Future.
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    36 minutos
  • The Questions We Ask Matter with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

    The Questions We Ask Matter with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
    Dec 5 2024
    In this live episode of A Matter of Degrees, Dr. Katharine Wilkinson joined Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson for a conversation on Ayana’s new book, What If We Get It Right, Visions of Climate Futures. The need to build community and the imperative to imagine the futures we want are now more important than ever. These topics are at the heart of this discussion, which took place before the election at the Carter Center in Atlanta. This episode was also released on the What If We Get It Right? podcast.
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    39 minutos
  • What the Election Means for Climate Policy

    What the Election Means for Climate Policy
    Nov 14 2024
    The election is over, but climate progress doesn’t have to be. How can we continue to push for equitable climate policies and defend current investments in clean energy? What are the state and local avenues for addressing the climate crisis? In this live episode of A Matter of Degrees, Dr. Leah Stokes is joined by Adrian Deveny, the Former Director of Energy and Environmental Policy for Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer. Leah and Adrian talk through what the results of the 2024 election mean for the future of our planet and how we can keep moving forward. Mentioned in this episode is the All We Can Save Project’s facilitation guide for coming together in community during this moment.
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    58 minutos
  • Minnesota’s Climate Breakthrough

    Minnesota’s Climate Breakthrough
    Oct 24 2024
    On this episode of A Matter of Degrees, we tell the story of how a powerful grassroots movement, ambitious lawmakers, and Governor Tim Walz turned Minnesota into a climate leader. Then, we talk about using the Minnesota blueprint to make change everywhere else. It’s election season, but the federal government isn’t the only venue for climate action. States also play a huge role in our path to healing the planet. Beyond just cutting pollution within their borders, states implement our big federal climate laws, test new innovative policy ideas, and build momentum for nationwide progress. And the center of gravity for state-level climate action isn’t California, or Washington, or Massachusetts. It’s Minnesota. Over the past few years, Minnesota has done more on climate than perhaps any other state, anchored by a nation-leading clean electricity standard that requires 100% carbon-free power by 2040. But these wins didn’t happen overnight, and they didn’t come easy. To tell Minnesota’s success story, we spoke to Aimee Witteman, the Vice President of Investment and Network at Rewiring America, Chris Conry, the Managing Director of 100 Percent MN, and Rep. Jamie Long, the Majority Leader of the Minnesota State House of Representatives.
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    34 minutos
  • Project 2025

    Project 2025
    Oct 7 2024
    Project 2025 has been all over the news lately. But what exactly is this conservative playbook for the Federal government? And what does it mean for climate policy? This week, A Matter of Degrees dives into the Heritage Foundation's plan for the next conservative presidential administration. Just weeks away from a pivotal election, we lay out what Project 2025 would mean for the climate movement and how it threatens to unwind all the progress we’ve made. This 900+ page document covers a lot of ground and, as we found out, the devil is in the details. In this episode, we walk through the policies that define Project 2025’s vision for a Federal government that’s fundamentally anti-government, anti-science, and anti-equity and justice. We also take a hard look at just exactly how we got here: who wrote Project 2025, who benefits from it, and what we can learn from it. To discuss all of this, and much more, we spoke to Abbie Dillen, the President of EarthJustice, Zoya Teirstein, a staff writer at GRIST, and Jade Begay, a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Also referenced in this episode is Zoya’s article on Project 2025 and climate policy and The Second Half Of The Decisive Decade: Potential U.S. Pathways On Climate, Jobs, And Health report by Energy Innovation, which models the impact of different climate and energy policy pathways starting in January 2025.
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    30 minutos