TIL Climate Podcast: A Genius Podcast We Can All Understand

  It's encouraging that the number of climate change podcasts grows every day. That growth means that people tackle seriously the climate change problem. They want to understand and then somehow be part of the solution, not the problem. 

Forget about climate deniers for the moment. They live in their own bubble, where climate change is a hoax to force them to buy LED bulbs, electric cars, and stop eating red meat. I know. It makes no sense. But this is where we are as a nation. 

Anyway, these misanthropes are not the target audience for the TIL Climate podcast.

 It's for the majority who believe in climate change and want to understand how it's happened, why it's so dangerous, and what we can do about it. 

To me, climate change is like recycling. There are a lot of people who want to recycle but so many barriers and confusing messages. 

Leave it to the braniacs at M.I.T. to develop a podcast that can transform the complex into bite-size pieces of comprehension.

TIL Climate positions itself perfectly: "Climate change is confusing. This award-winning MIT podcast breaks down the science, technologies, and policies behind climate change, how it’s impacting us, and what we can do about it. Each quick episode gives you the what, why, and how on climate change -- from real scientists -- to help us make informed decisions for our future."

To make the podcast a true learning experience, TIL Climate has created for each podcast episode "a set of questions and activities that educators can use in high school and higher education classrooms. To access these, click the "Educator Guide" tab on the episode page, or browse all our Educator Guides here."

“There’s a lot of information out there about why climate change is happening, how it will affect human life, and the solutions that are on the table. But it’s hard to find sources that you trust,” says Laur Hesse Fisher, program director for ESI and host of the new series. “And even then, there are still a lot of jargon and technicalities that you have to wade through.

“We’re trying to solve that problem.”

In each 10-minute episode, Hesse Fisher speaks to an expert from the MIT community to break down a clear, focused question related to climate change. In the first batch of episodes, these questions have included: What do clouds have to do with climate change? Why are different parts of the world experiencing different climate impacts? How does carbon pricing work?

The podcast is part of a broader ESI project called MIT Climate, a community-building effort built around a common web portal where users can share climate change-related projects, news stories, and learning resources at MIT and beyond. MIT Climate is intended to draw individuals and groups working on climate issues at MIT closer together, and eventually become a platform for worldwide, science-based learning and engagement on climate change. You can see a prototype of the portal at climate.mit.edu.

“We named the podcast TIL Climate after the popular Reddit hashtag TIL, which stands for Today I Learned,” says Hesse Fisher. “We hope to signify that these episodes are accessible. Even if you have no prior knowledge of climate science or policy, after 10 minutes you know enough to start being a part of the conversation.”

 The podcast slices up the complexity of climate change into easy-to-understand bites of knowledge. For me to make that claim, you should trust it. After all, I can't even wink with both eyes, snap my fingers, or blow a bubble. 

TIL Climate just started its fifth season. Their most recent episode, "Wait, how do greenhouse gases actually warm the planet?" was a tour de force of translating the complex into the understandable. I think it should be compulsory listening for all climate deniers.

The episode discusses physics and chemistry, which can trigger warning signals to most of us non-geniuses. Don't worry. In the capable, secure hands of the host, Laur Hesse Fisher, any topic, no matter how complex, can be understood.

Speaking of Fisher, she's an incredible host. It's like she was born for this. Did her parents say, "We want Laur to grow up to be an amazing podcast host?" 

As a host, Hesse Fisher holds the listeners' hands through every episode, making sure the information is served in easily digestible mental bites, and that the narrative is as clear as Sprite soda and just as bubbly. If you were expecting Hesse Fisher to sound like Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik) on the TV show The Big Bang Theory, you will be sorely disappointed. Hesse Fisher has a voice that can calm rogue waves, prepare you for daily meditation, and energize your brain.

I've listened to almost every episode to prepare for this review. In fact, I challenge Hesse Fisher to quiz me. Not that I'm smart (remember the whole can't blow a bubble or wink with both eyes' thing), it's simply that the TIL Climate podcast serves up climate change information like McDonald's serves fries. One taste and you're hooked.

What I enjoyed about the treatment of climate change in the podcast by experts on each episode is that these smart people offer information cleanly and without proselytizing. These experts often explain the tradeoffs and ambiguity inherent in climate change initiatives.

For example, in season four / episode four on electric cars, the expert, Assistant Professor of System Dynamics at the MIT Sloan School of Management David Keith acknowledges issues with using batteries, the messy EV manufacturing process, and the mining of lithium. Yet, at one point, he states, "An electric car that is drawing its recharge power from the dirtiest coal-powered plant is still getting the equivalent of about 60 miles per gallon (MPG) on that EV, still making it the most energy efficient and least polluting vehicle on the road."  

Keith then adds that an EV powered from a renewable power plant could get as much as 150 MPG.

In the episode on nuclear power, MIT Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Jacopo Buongiorno explained the benefits of nuclear power, covered the potential safety concerns and concluded that a power management system should include a combination of renewable and nuclear power.

The show is not a climate change cheerleader. Instead, it is a climate change explainer and a solutions investigative body.

Here's what I love about the TIL Climate podcast. Most climate change podcasts are forbidden ground for climate deniers, because people are always afraid that information that conflicts with their worldview could be legitimate, accurate and viable.  

Yet, the TIL Climate podcast is different. Their arguments aren't moral, ethical, spiritual, or existential. No, they reveal climate science in comprehensible slices, and they allow you to make the sandwich that makes sense of this data. 

If you are confused by the conflicting and contradictory information flying around social media about climate change, or you just want to know more without the preaching, listen to the TIL Climate podcast. 

And if the host, Laur Hesse Fisher, takes me up on my challenge of a test, I would like only TRUE or FALSE questions, and to be graded on a curve. So, 50 percent would be A, and so on from there. Bring it, Ms. Fisher. And, by the way, can you help me learn how to blow a bubble?