Environmental Podcasts
We all love a good podcast. They’re great when we’re on the move, on a journey somewhere, they add interest to the mundane (washing up) and can inform and entertain on our favourite subjects.
The only problem with podcasts is that there are so many to choose from, especially environmental podcasts about climate change, renewable energy and all the associated topics.
I have listened to quite a few environmental podcasts and have distilled my favourite 5 below, with links.
I find that by listening to these podcasts on the environment give me plenty to think about, they build my knowledge of the issue that we face and they also provide some much needed inspiration.
Environmental Podcasts I’m listening to
Rewilding the World
Join Ben Goldsmith as he speaks to some of the most influential people behind the most exciting and dramatic rewilding projects across the globe.
Zero Carbonista
Ideas and inspiration on how we can all live more sustainably, with green entrepreneur and climate campaigner Dale Vince. Dale is also the founder of the UK’s largest renewable energy company Ecotricity.
This podcast comes out once a week, on a Friday, and is a short chat with Dale covering the environment and political issues of the week.
I really enjoy this podcast as it is short and relatively informal but breaks down big issues and covers a lot of ground.
Reversing Climate Change
nori.com/podcasts/reversing-climate-change
This is a great podcast that delves deeply into some fascinating topics on the environment, including carbon capture and storage, climate change mitigation, ecosystem restoration and the national security impacts of climate change.
The episodes include a guest expert in any given topic and they go into some great detail. However, this is still very accessible to those who are not experts (i.e me).
They do keep things lighthearted so it is not overly academic, but I always find that I learn so much whilst listening.
How to Save a Planet
gimletmedia.com/shows/howtosaveaplanet
How to Save a Planet is a regular podcast from Gimlet Media, a podcast division inside of Spotify. So this one I do listen to on Spotify.
As they say themselves, “How to Save a Planet is a podcast that asks the big questions: what do we need to do to solve the climate crisis, and how do we get it done? “.
I can’t really sum it up better than that, so I won’t try!
A Matter of Degrees
This is another environmental podcast I listen to on Spotify.
Dr. Leah Stokes and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson as they tell stories about the powerful forces behind climate change — and the tools we have to fix it.
The aim is to increase people’s knowledge around climate change and the climate emergency so that we feel empowered to do something about it.
Covering politics, renewable energy, colonialism and everything in between, this is an extremely enlightening podcast.
At the time of writing there are slightly less episodes than the others in this list, but they are always very good.
Boag World
boagworld.com/season/25/episode/2503/
This one is a little more niche as it related to sustainable web design. The podcast asks the question of whether it is possible to be a sustainable web developer and how web design can be sustainable.
This is an important issue given that the internet is now a huge consumer of electricity worldwide and many data centres still run on coal power.
Positive News
New to 2024, Positive News magazine, of which I subscribe, have released a podcast.
Read more here: positive.news/society/six-things-we-learned-making-the-positive-news-podcast
More information on this topic can be found in this post on sustainable web development.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I have learnt a lot from all of the above podcasts and continue to do so.
I find that it is also a beneficial rabbit-hole whereby the more you listen to podcasts the more podcasts you then listen to. You might start to investigate some of the guests and realise that they have a podcast and so on.
This quickly becomes a window into topics you never knew about.
I think that podcasts are such an important medium for entertainment, information and focussed discussion. This means that if other mediums, i.e. TV, don’t cover the topics you want, you can usually find a good quality podcast that fills the void.
Also it means that you can learn something beneficial during even the most boring of car journeys, or washing up!