Pete and Jesse must bring Challenging Climate to a close. Since starting the podcast almost three years ago, we have each taken on more professional responsibilities and no longer have the time for this volunteer effort. In this short recording, we describe what we are now up to:The Degrees InitiativeThe Degrees Global Forum on SRMSRM360Climate Reflections, the SRM360 podcast - coming soon to all major podcast platformsCo-CREATEWe also sincerely thank Gillian Cheong, our producer; our guests;...
Nov 24, 2024
8 min
Our guest is Maarten Albers, a journalist who reports on agriculture and food for the Volkskrant, one of the Netherlands’ leading newspapers. In today's episode, we draw our attention to the 'nitrogen crisis' in the Netherlands - a major environmental story that has reshaped politics in the Netherlands and societal views on environmental regulation, science and technology, and even international relations.Listen as we discuss why we should care about nitrogen in the environment, and what less...
Aug 12, 2024
44 min
Our guest is Gwynne Dyer, an author, columnist, broadcaster and lecturer on international affairs. In this episode, we discuss the key messages from his new book Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World’s Climate Engineers, based on extensive interviews with the world’s top climate scientists. We discuss his insights from these interviews on the state of our climate, and address controversies and concerns over carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM).Links...
Jul 2, 2024
46 min
Jonathan Blake is Associate Director at the Berggruen Institute, where he leads the Planetary Program. Nils Gilman is Senior Vice President at the Berggruen Institute and Deputy Editor of Noema magazine. In this episode, we discuss the ideas in their recently published book, Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises. We grapple with ideas of sovereignty, planetary governance and subsidiarity.Links:Jonathan Blake’s profileNils Gilman’s profileCheck out their book, Chil...
May 28, 2024
51 min
Today’s guest is Dr. Shuchi Talati, a climate technology and governance expert and the founder of The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering. In this episode, we discuss ethics and governance of solar geoengineering, the formal cancellation of Harvard’s SCoPEx experiment, and the UN Environment Assembly deliberations on Solar Radiation Modification.Links:Shuchi Talati’s profileThe Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar GeoengineeringCheck out this paper, Who Are the Engineers...
Apr 30, 2024
51 min
Today’s guest is Ulrike Lohmann, Professor of Experimental Atmospheric Physics in the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich. Lohmann is also the Principal Investigator of the CLOUDLAB project, a multi-year project to investigate aerosol-cloud interactions in wintertime stratus clouds over the Alps. In this episode, we discuss the role of clouds and aerosols in our climate. We dive deep into aerosol-cloud interactions to uncover the science behind solar radiation mod...
Apr 2, 2024
45 min
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Benjamin Sovacool and Dr. Chad Baum, about their newly published, high-impact paper, “Public Perceptions and Support of Climate Intervention Technologies across the Global North and Global South”. Join us as we discuss the key findings of their work, and how these findings can and should influence policy and governance methods.Dr. Benjamin Sovacool is a professor with affiliations at Aarhus University, the University of Sussex and Boston University. Dr...
Mar 7, 2024
53 min
George Monbiot is a renowned British author, The Guardian Columnist and environmental activist. George is the author of more than a dozen books, the most recent of which is Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet, and he was awarded the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2022. In this episode, we discuss topics of his insightful and provocative articles such as de-throning GDP, radical climate activism, the ‘wealth curse’ and contentious technologies such as nuclear energy,...
Mar 5, 2024
48 min
This episode’s guest is Janos Pasztor. He has four decades of work experience in the areas of energy, environment, climate change, and sustainable development, including roles as Executive Director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G) and UN Assistant Secretary-General for Climate Change. In this episode, we explore the political lens of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM), discussing the progress of CDR and SRM discourse, as well as its chall...
Feb 6, 2024
51 min
David Stainforth is a Professorial Research Fellow at the London School of Economics. David has had a long career studying the climate problem and the challenges of making predictions of future climate change. His research spans the philosophy of climate science, climate economics, climate modelling, and decision-making under deep uncertainty.In this episode, we discuss David’s new book ‘Predicting our climate future’, exploring the challenges of making predictions about future climate change...
Jan 9, 2024
42 min
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