Threshold

In many ways, the climate crisis is an identity crisis. As we reckon with the damage we’ve done, we’re being forced into a massive confrontation with the powers, limitations, and essential nature of our species. How do we even process the notion that we can do—that we are doing—so much harm to ourselves and to all life on Earth? What is it about us that led us into this mess, and do we have what it takes to get ourselves out of it? Who are we? And who do we want to become? This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we explore what we learn about ourselves from bonobos, the necessity of getting everyone on the planet in the same boat, and the power of stories to shape our future. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.orgMentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

The climate crisis is not just a problem of carbon emissions: it's one of inequality. In fact, global warming and global inequality are the same problem manifesting in different ways. And one of the places we see this connection clearly is at COP26. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we follow the conflict over loss and damage, mitigation, and finance in the negotiating room. Who wins and who loses in the making of an international climate pact? This episode contains strong language that may not be suitable for all listeners. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.orgMentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

The UN climate talks, or COPs, are attempting the biggest, most complicated, highest-stakes group project humanity has ever known. They are, in a sense, an attempt to design a revolution—to help guide a massive societal transformation that needs to happen all around the world, all at once, to curb climate chaos. But design and planning are rarely how paradigm shifts actually happen. So how do we actually make it happen? And can we do it fast enough? This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we continue our journey at COP26 in Glasgow to see what the process for organizing a social and economic revolution really looks like and explore what kind of collaboration this kind of climate transformation asks of all of us. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org Mentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

The UN climate talks, or COPs, are a lot of different things: they're confusing, bureaucratic, inspiring, boring, infuriating, and exhilarating. They are also the only thing we’ve got to deal with climate change on a scale that matches the problem—that is to say, globally. The overall goal of each COP is to make progress on climate: to get all countries moving towards a decarbonized world—as equitably as possible and based on the best scientific information available. But of course, every country has a different idea of what that looks like and how we should get there. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we take you into the trenches of COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, to explore how the process of climate negotiation works and what’s at stake for every human on the planet.This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.orgMentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

If the steel industry were a country, it would be the world's third-largest emitter. So to prevent a climate catastrophe, this industry has to change. And not just a little bit: we have to fundamentally transform how we make one of the most versatile, durable, widely used materials human beings have ever created. That's exactly what a group of companies in northern Sweden is aiming to do.  This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5” In this episode we travel to northern Sweden to explore how a greener process could revolutionize the iron and steel industry, dramatically reduce fossil fuel emissions, and make life better for people in industrial communities.This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org Mentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

For centuries, we have been willing to sacrifice places, ecosystems, and entire species for industries like steel. While steel is one of the most useful materials humans have ever created, it’s also one of the most damaging to the climate and to the people who work in and live near these mills. These conditions help explain why the workers in the steel mills of Gary in the first half of the 20th century came from two main groups: newly arrived immigrants and African Americans who had moved up from the southern United States.This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we explore the intersection of racism, industrialization, and climate change in Gary, Indiana. Also Michael Jackson.This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.orgMentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

Steel is the signature material of the Industrial Revolution. It’s also an essential component of the wind turbines, electric cars, and climate-friendly buildings we’ll need in a decarbonized world. But making steel requires mountains of coal. So we both really need steel and really need to stop making it the way we’re doing now.This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we explore the costs and benefits of our industrial processes on people, communities, and the climate through the story of Gary, Indiana.This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.orgMentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

One of the most challenging aspects of the climate crisis is that we have to do everything at once - transition the entire global economy away from fossil fuels AND deal with the warming that’s already happening. In climate-speak, these two things are called mitigation and adaptation, and one of the places where you can see this playing out is Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria and one of the most important ports in Africa. It’s a city that’s flourishing and also one that is facing a huge problem as the world warms and the ocean encroaches. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we pay a visit to two communities in Lagos, just a few miles apart, responding to climate change in very different ways.This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org Mentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

A lot of the changes needed to keep global heating below 1.5 degrees have to occur at a huge, international level. But nearly a fifth of carbon emissions in the U.S. come from our homes. Are there things we can do at home to help the climate crisis? And just how effective are individual actions?  This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we zoom in to look at what individuals can do to decarbonize their homes, from small town Livingston, Montana, to New York City. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.orgMentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

We keep hearing (and saying) that solving climate change is really hard. But we actually know what we need to do - and have the technology to do it - right now. It’s more a question of what happens if we don’t act fast enough.This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we look at some models for how we can realistically meet the 1.5C goal and get to net zero by 2050. There is hope and there are also challenges, but the biggest barriers and our most promising tools are our imperfect human selves.This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.orgMentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

The number of things at stake in the climate crisis do not fit inside one episode. It's hard to even fit them inside your mind. Part of what makes the potential losses so hard to grasp is that they're happening at lots of different scales, all at the same time. And as we move back and forth between what's happening out our own backdoors with what we know is happening all around the globe, one thing becomes very clear: there's no separating what we're doing to nature from what we're doing to ourselves. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we look at what climate chaos could do to our ability to meet our basic needs and live together in relative harmony, and explore what we all stand to lose if we don’t act fast enough. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.orgMentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

Britain was the first place in the world to go through what we now call the Industrial Revolution, a transformation of an agricultural, rural society into a manufacturing powerhouse that kicked off the mass migration of ancient carbon from the ground to the atmosphere. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we explore the mass acceleration of nearly every process on earth that began in Britain in the 1700s and continues to this day, a multi-century fossil-fuel binge that knocked the climate out of whack. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.orgMentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

There are quite a few things working against us when it comes to understanding how urgently we need to act on climate change. But there's also the simple fact that we can't literally see how we're changing the atmosphere. It’s time to give the atmosphere its due. This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we go straight up, into our atmosphere. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.orgMentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

After decades of scientific study and political wrangling the world has agreed—at least on paper—that 1.5C of heating must be the upper limit of our impact on the climate system. How could something that sounds so small matter so much?This is Threshold Season 4: “Time to 1.5.” In this episode, we take you inside the scientific and political origin story of 1.5C, from the holocene to the halls of COP26 in Glasgow. Learn more about Threshold on our website. This work depends on people who believe in it and choose to support it. People like you. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.orgMentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

After four decades of fighting, the lease sale for drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was held on January 6, 2021. Amy sat down with David Aaronovitch of The Times of London to talk about what happened at the lease sale for their podcast, “Stories of our Times.” Amy and David talk about what the outcome means for the future of the refuge, and also revisit some of the central questions of season three of Threshold: Why drill in the refuge? Who stands to gain—or lose—the most from drilling? And how does the legacy of colonization come into play here? This episode is reposted with permission from “Stories of our Times.”Learn more about Threshold on our website. Become part of our passionate network of supporters here. Mentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

The controversy over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is at a critical point: a lease sale may be just days away, but lawsuits have piled up that could put a stop to that sale and put a wrench in the federal government’s efforts to open the refuge to drilling.In this update to our Peabody Award-winning series The Refuge, we dive into this moment through conversations with three lawyers and Vebjørn Aishana Reitan, a polar bear guide in Kaktovik, the only village within the refuge. Do these lawsuits hold water? What impacts might they have? And what’s next for the people living closest to the refuge, whatever happens in court?To listen to our series The Refuge, head over to Threshold’s website or find it on Threshold’s feed wherever you’re listening to this podcast. If you enjoy this episode, please support our independent nonprofit journalism at thresholdpodcast.org/donateAll donations through the end of the year will be doubled by NewsMatch. Mentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

Last week, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge made headlines all over the world: the Trump administration finalized plans to open up this piece of remote, Alaskan wilderness to oil and gas development. But what does this latest move in the decades-long battle over the future of ANWR really mean?To find out, and to understand what might be next in this saga, we sat down with Heather Richards, who covers drilling on federal lands for E&E News, a journalism outlet focused on energy and the environment. Listen to our Peabody Award-winning series The Refuge for an in-depth look into the tangle of politics, economic aspirations, traditional culture, and environmental activism that have shaped this controversy for decades. Learn more about Threshold on our website. Our reporting is made possible by listeners like you. Become part of our passionate network of supporters here. This series was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. Mentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

When the debate over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge first emerged, most people had never heard of global warming. So over the last four decades, the controversies over oil in the Refuge and climate change evolved on different tracks. Now, those tracks are intersecting. We dive into the resulting tensions and contradictions around oil and climate in this final episode of our series on the Refuge.Learn more about Threshold on our website. Our reporting is made possible by listeners like you. Become part of our passionate network of supporters here. This series was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. Mentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

The Gwich’in have lived and hunted in the Refuge long before it was carved out as federal, protected land. Their territory spans a huge swath of northeastern Alaska and northwestern Canada, and their health and culture depends on the Porcupine caribou herd - a group of animals 200,000 strong that calve on the area of the coastal plain slated for drilling.In this two-part episode, spend time in Arctic Village, a community just over the southern border of the Refuge, and hear from the Gwich’in about what’s at stake for them as development looms in the 1002 area.Learn more about Threshold on our website. Our reporting is made possible by listeners like you. Become part of our passionate network of supporters here. This series was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.Mentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate

The Gwich’in have lived and hunted in the Refuge long before it was carved out as federal, protected land. Their territory spans a huge swath of northeastern Alaska and northwestern Canada, and their health and culture depends on the Porcupine caribou herd - a group of animals 200,000 strong that calve on the area of the coastal plain slated for drilling.In this two-part episode, spend time in Arctic Village, a community just over the southern border of the Refuge, and hear from the Gwich’in about what’s at stake for them as development looms in the 1002 area.Learn more about Threshold on our website. Become part of our passionate network of supporters here. This series was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.Mentioned in this episode:Give | Connect | ShareA single season of Threshold costs over half a million dollars, demands thousands of hours of field and production work over multiple years, and requires hundreds of sources, experts, and supporters to create. Learn more about how you can help at thresholdpodcast dot org.Donate