How To Save A Planet Latest Episode: Our Carbon Footprint

 Podcasts nail listeners' sweet spot because they can tackle the routine questions of your day -- such as fixing a leaky roof -- or go big and take on the large, global questions that impacts all of us. 

The How To Save A Planet podcast weaves that tapestry between the big and the little by helping listeners understand better how seemingly small lifestyle changes can have a big impact on the health of our planet. 

How To Save A planet podcast logo

Podcast hosts -- journalist Alex Blumberg and scientist/policy nerd Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson -- scour the Earth for solutions, talk to people who are making a difference, ask hard questions, crack dumb jokes and — episode by episode — figure out how to build the future we should all want.

In this week's episode,  Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Alex Blumberg are joined by editor-in-chief of “Project Drawdown” and colleague Dr. Katharine K. Wilkinson, to debate if individual climate-conscious choices can really make an impact on climate change as a whole. 

Greenhouse gases emanate from six major sectors, with the largest ones being electricity production (25%) and food, agricultural and land use (24%). The average American carbon footprint is about 26 tons of carbon emission per year, while the global average carbon footprint hits just 4.8 tons.

Despite what these numbers suggest, they discuss how eco-conscious choices can have a ripple effect, and turn people’s disconnected relationship with climate justice into an engaged one. 

 We’ve all heard about our “carbon footprint” - how all of our individual actions, from eating meat to flying and driving, contribute to climate change. In this episode, the podcast details what’s at the top of the American carbon footprint list, and then asks a bigger question...does your carbon footprint even matter? Or is systemic change the way to go?

Together, the co-hosts and guest weigh the global and systemic impact of greenhouse gases against individuals’ carbon footprints, battling with the somber possibility that the fight against climate change relies entirely on new policy. With some math, Dr. Johnson and Dr. Wilkinson offer some perspective.

 

If you haven't been following this podcast, it is definitely worth a listen. For climate change advocates, the podcast carefully calibrates the scope of the environmental problem that we face. For climate change deniers, the podcast offers a crystal ball perspective of what happens to the globe if nothing is done.

 

For example, a recent show includes an episode of a podcast, called “A Matter of Degrees.” Co-hosts Dr. Leah Stokes and Dr. Katherine Wilkinson detail how Arizona Public Service became the Darth Vader of electric utilities — and how public pressure forced APS to come clean.

 

Then the podcast gets into the weeds. Seaweed and giant kelp are sometimes called “the sequoias of the sea.” Yet at a time when so many people are talking about climate solutions and reforestation — there aren’t nearly enough people talking about how the ocean can be part of that. In a two-part series, the co-hosts discover how seaweed can play a role in addressing climate change, and how a fisherman named Bren Smith became kelp’s unlikely evangelist.


You can listen to the latest episode HERE


 


 

Comments