Category: Podcasts

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Podcasts

Podcasts about climate change – some brilliant, some mid, one lousy (anon).

The moorhens on the canal aren’t going to feed themselves. Well, of course they are, but I want to feed them more, and watch tiny smudges (as my wife and I call them) become adolescents and then moorhens themselves. And this I do, almost daily. Which means I am listening to moor (geddit?) podcasts. And among those, some on climate change, which has become unavoidable. And here, as a “public service”, a bit of a shout out to them, some brief reviews (other podcast reviews can be found here). PLEASE SHARE YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS!

I’ve structured this below from the very best to the okay (ymmv!) to the ugh.

Boiling Point (LA Times) The Fake News Pipeline

The other Boiling Point podcasts by the engaging Sammy Roth I had listened to were okay to good, but this one was simply excellent. Pink slime journalism, news mirages etc – Miranda Green is clearly a good journo, and a good interviewee.

Another Boiling Point, about “Hot takes about climate journalism” was also fine, with interviewee Sadie Babits. But didn’t historicise enough (e.g. the late Ross Gelbspan‘s work in the 1990s?!) or even mention structural pressures such as the Herman and Chomsky propaganda model.

Verdict – Boiling Point should be on your subscribe to list.

American Prestige: LA Fires and Lifeboat Capitalism

really good – Hamilton Nolan is clearly worth reading – but no historical context – (e.g. on re-insurers in 1990s).

Buut the fierce intelligence and humanity of the hosts and the interviewee shone through. Given the problem of “The missing institutions” (blog post pending), it’s unsurprising that the “what is to be done?” was cringe – “er, join union and vote for better politicians.”

See also the classic 2004 article Onion article “Libertarian reluctantly calls fire department”

American Prestige: Capitalism and Fire in the 19th Century with with Daniel Immerwahr

This as another really good one (or the bit I could listen to was). Immerwahr has a recent academic essay “All That Is Solid Bursts into Flame: Capitalism and Fire in the Nineteenth-Century United States” (For those not in the know, this is a riff on a quote by Karl Marx about how capitalism’s creative/destructive dynamics were leading to situations where “all that is solid melts into air.” It’s a dog whistle for radicals).

He also shouted out to Stephen J Pine.

Immerwahr has a fascinating essay about Frank Herbert’s Dune

London Review of Books: Have we surrendered to climate change

Brett Christophers interviewed on the book Overshoot by Andreas Malm and Wim Carton, which he had reviewed for the LRB (see here).

Yeah. It was fine for what it as, for as far as these people can think. But to pick up on specifics – at 16 mins 30 seconds they allude to consumers not citizens but don’t pick up on the decades long politicide of the west. I know Jurgen has blotted his copybook of late, but the basic tools for thinking about civil society, and the colonisation of the Lifeworld are WORTH USING.

Nonetheless, the podcast is good on the farce that is Negative Emissions Technologies and the career imperatives that “force” academics to pretend its a real thing.. Very weak on what to do differently – again, the missing institutions…

What’s Wrong with Democracy: Episode 18 Climate Change

So, this had someone talking – without much hesitancy – about “social tipping point” – hmmm. Then a Global Witness guy dating the problems of international climate diplomacy to the first COP in Berlin in 1995, when the real major defeats for the planet were dished out in the period 1991-2, and that is really really important to understand. There was . Good stuff on Ukraine and oil prices (the West basically choosing to keep the latter low, and chiding/withdrawing support if Ukraine’s actions got close to raising them). It all got a bit hopey changey in the final bit. No mention of civil society institutions. Can’t really recommend. Was relatively empty of any deep content (and yes, in half an hour that is possible)

Finally, there was a truly terrible one about “are we fucked?” (part of a climate podcast – not the one called “Are we f*cked,”, which I haven’t listened to) that was basically unlistenable – I got to the end, but only just, and deserve a medal.

I swear, people who think that they are good at giving an explanation of what is going on to a complete “know nothing” and then their explanation is garbled, with loads of assumed knowledge and no vivid images, metaphors or anything. Ugh. Just ugh.

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Podcasts

May 28, 2025 – signs of the times

You can listen to this here (NB Terrible Sound Quality – if/when I do actual podcasting I will have to get some proper kit!)

May 28, 2025, with the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide at 430ppm, up from 315ppm in 1958.

Three pieces of news today tell you everything you need to know about the planet and the prospects for our species.  Taking them in turn – physical, government-capital and “resistance”.

The physical news first. 

As Madeline Cuff, writing for the New Scientist reports

The world could see its first year of warming above 2°C by the end of the decade, leading climate scientists have warned for the first time…. The chances of seeing a year above 2°C of warming are still very slim, with the WMO/Met Office team estimating the probability at 1 per cent. 

She quotes Leon Hermanson of the Met Office as saying “It’s exceptionally unlikely, but it could happen”

It was the WMO – the World Meteorological Organisation that coordinated the use of satellites and other forms of data collection. In the mid1970s it was a key node in international cooperation and discussion of carbon dioxide build-up. The WMO hosted the First World Climate Conference in February 1979. It  could and should have been a turning point in the way politicians thought about atmospheric pollution.  Almost ten years later it was – along with the United Nations Environment Program – co-founder of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

One of life’s mild coincidences is that 35 years ago today Working Group 1 of the IPCC released its first report on the science of climate change.

The government capital nexus

To the surprise of precisely no-one, in Australia, the Federal Labor government led by Anthony Albanese has said yes to climate chaos, by granting an extension to Woodside’s North West Shelf project. As per the Australia Institute, this is a disaster on five fronts.

The ALP was recently returned to office in Australia, with the overt climate denialists of the Coalition punished by voters. However, given decisions like these, one cannot but be reminded of the mournful closing lines of George Orwell’s Animal Farm – so spoilers – 

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

Resistance

Thirteen years ago the UK commentator George Monbiot asked the right question.  In an article called “The Mendacity of Hope” he wrote

“So this is the great question of our age: where is everyone? The monster social movements of the 19th century and first 80 years of the 20th have gone, and nothing has replaced them. Those of us who still contest unwarranted power find our footsteps echoing through cavernous halls once thronged by multitudes“

In late 2018 a new group – “Extinction Rebellion” – made a splash with a declaration of rebellion in Parliament Square in London and then the occupation of five bridges across the Thames. A “rebellion “in London in April 2019 gained a lot of press attention, but a follow-up in October 2019 was less successful and the wheels were wobbling, if not yet actually coming off. 2020 saw COVID and also offshoots from XR – a “Pink Party”, Insulate Britain and then, in 2022, “Just Stop Oil.” High profile arrestable actions followed, as did media smears and police and security service activity.  Many JSO activists have gone to jail. JSO has recently announced it is ceasing its activity. However, the past is not even the past. 

As the BBC’s Laura O’Neill reports

“Four Just Stop Oil protesters who were planning to glue themselves to the taxiway at Manchester Airport have been jailed.

Officers arrested Indigo Rumbelow, Margaret Reid, Leanorah Ward and Daniel Knorr as they were making their way to the airport on 4 August 2024.

They were equipped with heavy-duty bolt-cutters, angle grinders, glue, sand, Just Stop Oil high-visibility vests and a leaflet containing instructions to follow when interacting with police.

All four were found guilty of conspiracy to intentionally cause a public nuisance and jailed at Manchester Minshull Crown Court for between 18 and 30 months. Additionally, they were each fined £2,000.

“

So what can we expect?

We can expect more temperature records to fall. It would be no surprise to me at all to see us breach two degrees by 2030, though I suspect that won’t actually happen until, say 2035.  What does this mean? It means that the second half of the twenty-first century will make the first half of the twentieth look like a golden age of peace, love and understanding. 

We can expect more extractive capitalism projects to be given approval by supine/captured governments (though one should resist the illusions of a golden age -elected and unelected policymakers are almost always and everywhere mere meat puppets for whoever has the most money. It can be more complicated than that, but it usually isn’t.)

And given that the consequences of our species’ failure to act on scientists’ warnings are clear to all but those most determined to deny reality, we can expect more resistance.

The failure, over the last thirty five years of citizens in the West – with freedom of speech, assembly and information – to build strong, determined and resilient social movements and civil society organisations is a fascinating puzzle. Or perhaps a mundane puzzle, made fascinating by the consequences of the failure.  

In any case, despite the jailings, expect  more resistance at some point – which is not to say that that resistance will be any more effective than what has gone on these last thirty six years, as annual carbon dioxide emissions went up by almost 70 per cent and the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide rose from roughly 350 parts per million to the current level of 430ppm.

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Podcasts

Podcasts/interview/book alert – Sarah Schulman on AIDS, activism, the fantasy and necessity of solidarity etc

If you are looking for earned activist wisdom, about what solidarity is, what tenacity and courage are, then I have good news; Sarah Schulman.

Here’s an interview about her new book

Here’s the details of her new book, the Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity.

Here’s an interview with the New York Times podcast, where she points out that solidarity is about the infrastructure of dissent/resistance in the future, not solving the problem in the here and now.

Here’s a 2022 interview with Novara Media about a host of things, including her 2012 book “Gentrification of the Mind.”

I have downloaded a bunch more podcasts and will add them to this list once I have listened.

As per the Wikipedia entry, Schulman has written a lot of novels etc, and I also need to look at those and her ACTUP oral history project.

Update 22 May 2025

Here’s an interview with the folks at How to Survive the End of the World

And with the Los Angeles Review of Books

(you probably only need to listen to one of these two – lots of overlap, understandably).

Here is an insightful and critical review of the book, also at the LARB by Joshua Gutterman Tranen.

And here is a blistering blog post from someone who is, ah, not a fan of Schulman’s (writing) style, while agreeing with the basic premises of “Conflict is not abuse” – or at least the steelman version of it.

https://thingofthings.substack.com/p/conflict-is-not-abuse-review-wow

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Podcasts

Podcast Review: Tipping Point on The Limits to Growth. LISTEN NOW FOR THE LOVE OF GAIA

Podcasts come in all shapes and sizes. Short, pointed and single-header stuff (take a bow Alex Steffen). Looooong, not quite as insightful as it thinks it is, single-or-multi-header (you know who you are – as in, if you think this is about your podcast, it probably is).

Rarely do you come across a podcast that hits the trifecta

a) about a really important topic

b) not a second shorter or longer than it needs to be

c) super use of archival audio.

The Tipping Point series, a three-parter on the origins, reception and after life of the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth report is all of those and more. LISTEN TO IT NOW FOR THE LOVE OF GAIA.

It is what popular education should be, but so often isn’t.

Would I have put a bit more in there at the beginning about previous efforts to raise environmental alarm? Yes, but thank goodness I was not running the podcast, because it would have dragged the whole thing down. There could be a different podcast about that, the “before the Limits to Growth” – from, say, Malthus, through Vogt and Osborn to Carson and on to Ehrlich. That I would listen to. For now, though…


LISTEN TO IT NOW FOR THE LOVE OF GAIA.

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Podcasts

Podcasts review: Ice-free Arctic days by 2030? and the meaning(s) of crisis

The moorhens are hatching (producing what the wife and I call “smudges”- impossibly cute round balls of feathers that can zip along). Therefore, the usually-daily canal walk becomes mandatory. Therefore, more podcasts will be listened to. And reviewed.

But the first today was one I listened to while doing some grunt work at the computer. It’s part of the well-established and very deservedly successful series “Just Have a Think” by Dave Borlace

The episode I listened to was “Hothouse Earth and an Ice-Free Arctic Sea. Starting in 2030?“

With the usual good production values, and precision, it outlines a recent paper about when the Arctic might have ice-free days.

The comments are moderated/curated, and therefore worth engaging with. Phase transition indeed…

The second podcast was listened to while hungry moorhens flew at me demanding (and getting) a feed.

It is from the wonderful New Books Network podcasts, and it is an interview with the author of

Against the Crisis:Economy and Ecology in a Burning World By Ståle Holgersen

The interview questions, by Stuti Roy, are fine (though I always think that authors should have their feet held to the fire about what, specifically, the “good guys” have done WRONG or inadequately, and what they need to do differently. UMMV) and the answers considered and well-delivered.

Well worth your time…

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Podcasts Predatory delay

Podcast Review: Alex Steffen’s “When We Are”

I’ve only listened to three of these so far

  • Feb 3 Letting Go of Everything We Expected
  • Jan 24 2025 Why I remain Optimistic
  • Jan 21 Trump Makes it Official: No-one is coming to save us – showing that it “you’re on your own “  using a quote from Jesse Keenan – see also this one.

Steffen, who came up with the term predatory delay, is good at compassionately addressing people’s disorientation and inability to do themselves a sitrep, (though he doesn’t use those phrases.)

And the crucial point is that things are accelerating, and therefore OODA Loops are being hacked, not just by actual enemies, but by events. There’s that famous quote that I use too much from Walt Benjamin about the Klee painting – this wreckage that piles up at our feet, we call it progress.

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

I’m in this sense of disorientation, alienation, things moving too fast has been going on since sort of the joint processes of the massive urbanization and industrialization of the early 19th century, in the coming of “modernity.” See also “the hypertrophy of objective culture” by ol’ Georgie Simmel.

It goes back before then, of course, it’s never as if there wasn’t changes, as Steffen himself very clearly articulates, 

These really valuable 10 or 12 minute podcast. It’s a good format (see also Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American). Doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Steffen has useful things to say, and he says them well. He’s good on this question of, you know, being “optimistic”, and distinguishes it from hope and hopium . He points out that he grew up in the 70s and 80s, (as did I), with all of this sense of, you know, “the 100th monkey” bollocks and global change in consciousness. 

And Steffen doesn’t think that’s going to happen, but he also doesn’t think we’re all going to die next Tuesday. And he makes an interesting point that in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, there was such massive destruction, dislocation, millions murdered, but life went on and things got better.

Hmmm I mean, you could argue that’s because large parts of the world were physically untouched, especially the United States and Australia, and that food was not or the availability of food globally was not a concern. 

We shall see what happens if we make it to the 2030s and 2040s in some kind of shape. But I do think that there is a non-trivial – I’m not saying it’s large – but it’s a non trivial chance of generalized sort of well, for want of a better term, “generalised global societal collapse.”

And then, of course, this question of “What do you mean by that word collapse?” Because it covers everything from the Great Depression through to Mad Max apocalypse.

Anyway, look, these podcasts by Steffen are worth your time. 

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Podcasts

Podcast review: Every breath you take, Alice Bell on Cursed Object podcast

So, following on from review of Rebecca John talking about Charles Keeling and the Air Pollution Foundation on the History of California podcast, here’s some brief thoughts on Alice Bell on the Curated Object.

If you know of podcasts that deal – even tangentially – with the history of man-made climate change (research, politics, etc), then let me know.

Alice Bell, author of Our Biggest Experiment, was recently a guest on the Cursed Object podcast.

The objects she brought were

a) a jar of London air (Euston Road)

b) a 1989 edition of the Radio Times which was all about Being Green (I’ve seen that issue, it’s extraordinary).

Bell was a confident and engaging guest, and the whole episode is worth your time.

Three things stood out for me, but your mileage will vary.

  • Bell’s point about the intertwining of energy and democracy – e.g Plug plot  Riots (there’s also all that Carbon Democracy stuff by Timothy Mitchell, I don’t remember is she mentioned it. She probably did.
  • The point that people who went climbing mountains and glaciers in the 19th century left, ah, “spoor” which is now back with us, thanks to all the melting.
  • A nice anecdote about how, when she was doing walking tours of London’s climate history (Shell, DECC etc) then different people would turn up to take part with their own stories – one couple whose first date, in 1947, had had to be moved because the smog was so bad the busses weren’t running (before the 1956 Clean Air Act, the response to the deadly December 1952 smog, air quality was astonishingly bad. It still is, just less visible now).
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Podcasts

Podcast review: Rebecca John, Deceptive PR Strategy Pioneered in 1950s California to Hide Climate Change Risk

I am going to start doing reviews of climate change podcasts that touch on the long gory history (especially pre-1988). If you have recommendations, get in touch. The first review is positive (yay). Rebecca John appearing on the History of California Podcast to talk about research she did about the “Air Pollution Foundation” – an early 1950s oil-industry funded group that (spoilers) hired a young Charles Keeling to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Tl; dr – good questions, comprehensive but not verbose answers, and some methodological nuggets for the history geeks; what’s not to love?

The review

History of California Podcast

The History of California podcast looks really good. I’ve only listened to one episode (so far), and it was even better than really good. And it’s an interview with Rebecca John who has done lots of award winning documentaries, etc, and has been fossicking in the archives for what we knew about climate change when. “we” meaning the elites, not just the scientists. This is, of course, All Our Yesterday’s jam.

John is being interviewed here about one particular article published in January of 2024 about how the oil and gas companies were funding something called the air pollution foundation in 1953 54 in Los Angeles, and how that foundation funded the first carbon dioxide measurement work of Charles Keeling, who has neglected to mention it in his memoir.

This is what you want from a podcast. The questions are both on point and to the point, the answers are comprehensive without being train- spottery. And there’s some, you know, fun methodological facts. I totally recognize that you’re sitting in an archive, and you read some phrase, and you think, “hello?”, and then you pull on that bit of string and kapow. Well, it’s takes hard work, obviously.

So have a listen, and I’ll certainly be checking up more of the history of California podcast 

Two final things.

John has a really interesting news piece on DeSmog that begins thus

An Israeli private investigator wanted by U.S. authorities for allegedly carrying out a hack-and-leak operation commissioned on behalf of ExxonMobil is fighting against his extradition to a Brooklyn, NY, detention center. 

Also thanks to John’s shout out at the end, I found the specific files on Inside Climate News about Exon “the path not taken.” That led me to a trove of materials, including the one I just put up, from January 29, 1980, which is going viral (by my standards) at the moment.


Next podcast review – Alice Bell as a guest on The Cursed Object.

See also Green and Red podcast (haven’t watched yet)