Sea Change Radio

Carbon offsets are often touted as a solution to humanity’s bad habit of emitting an awful lot of CO2. But how many of us actually know what things like carbon offsets and carbon dioxide removal are all about? This week on Sea Change Radio, we revisit our 2023 discussion with David Ho, a professor in the oceanography department at the University of Hawaii and a co-founder of the nonprofit, [C]Worthy. We discuss his piece in the science journal Nature explaining the shortcomings of carbon offsets, learn more about the mission of [C]Worthy, and take a look at how some corporations greenwash the admirable goal of producing net zero goods. Then, we hear an excerpt of a conversation we had earlier this year with Andrew Kaminsky, a journalist for Triple Pundit as we look at the environmental impacts of extracting various minerals and discuss how mining companies are changing the way they operate.

If you haven’t yet personally witnessed the very odd feeling of driving up to a four-way stop sign only to realize that the vehicle across the street from you has no driver behind the wheel, chances are you will soon enough. Like it or not, autonomous vehicles are coming, and this week on Sea Change Radio we are speaking with Samuel Abuelsamid, an expert on self-driving technology. We take a look back at the evolution of autonomous vehicles, examine the purported “full self-driving mode” offered by Tesla, and discuss some of the sustainability issues surrounding this technology.

Amid all the darkness sweeping our nation over the past year, there remain vital signs of life from progressives. But will they be able to adequately fight, organize, and inspire to retake power? This week on Sea Change Radio, a political discussion with John Stoehr of The Editorial Board as we focus on the Democratic Party. We talk about messaging, the end of the government shutdown and look at some of the rising stars on the left side of the aisle.

This week on Sea Change Radio, we’ll get the latest on the electric vehicle consumer market from automotive expert, Jim Motavalli. We’ll look at some new models worth checking out if you’re considering buying an EV, examine the impact of the Trump tariffs on the industry, and look at how foreign auto makers from Germany to China are improving their electric vehicles.

The telecom titan Verizon just recently laid off around 15,000 employees, and it was just a blip on an otherwise slow news day. The DIY craft giant Michael’s regularly hires 15,000 seasonal workers for the holidays, and it doesn’t generally even brush up against a headline. We provide these numbers to help our listeners scale the 14,000 people working in West Virginia’s coal industry, and the massive influence the question of their employment has on the American political and environmental landscape. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Babette Hogan and Julie Eisenberg, whose new film, Running For The Mountains, takes a close look at the West Virginia coal mining industry. We discuss the environmental waste caused by coal in the state, dive into West Virginia’s politics, and hear what they learned over their 15 year film-making process.

According to a recent Forbes report, 65 million American households have pet dogs. Plenty of those people buy toys for their dogs, which is a nice thing to do, except that it leads to an enormous amount of waste – an estimated 634 million dog toys end up in US landfills each year. That’s approximately 40,500 tons of dog toy garbage. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Spencer Williams, the founder and CEO of West Paw, a small dog toy company out of Bozeman, Montana that is doing its best to reduce the carbon pawprint. We look at the company’s products, find out how their commitment to recycling distinguishes them from the rest of the sector, and delve into some carbon-neutral ideas for keeping your pet entertained without toys.

Those of us who studied anthropology in the latter half of the 20th century most likely learned that the birthplace of humankind was East African countries such as Tanzania and Kenya. But for much of that same period, the apartheid regime in South Africa largely prohibited archaeological excavations, at least in part because it didn’t want to unearth any evidence that Blacks and Whites shared common ancestors. This week on Sea Change Radio, we take a look at some of the stunning archaeological discoveries that have emerged from South Africa over the past fifteen years. Our guest today is Dr. Keneiloe Molopyane, an archeologist who leads research in an area known as the Cradle of Humankind. In our wide-ranging discussion with Dr. Molopyane, we get a quick anthropology lesson, learn more about discoveries from the region, and explore the historical context of these prehistorical finds.

We often hear the expression “we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” but what happens if the terrorists control all three branches of government? This week on Sea Change Radio, we talk to David Kieve, the president of EDF Action, an offshoot of the Environmental Defense Fund that focuses on public policy and political advocacy. We try to unpack some of the more deleterious policies of the current administration with a focus on rising energy prices and take a brief look at the landscape of Big Conservation.

While diverting the flow of a river is a practice that people have been engaging in for about 5,000 years, dams are far from harmless. Like many human inventions, dams have been known to perpetuate economic hierarchies, rob communities of essential resources, and wreak havoc on ecosystems. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to Amy Bowers Cordalis, an attorney who has a new book out: The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family’s Fight To Save A River And A Way Of Life. It tells the story of her legal crusade to tear down the Klamath River dam and help restore the river to its natural state. A UN Champion of the Earth Laureate, Cordalis, recounts the history of the construction of four dams at the headwaters of the Klamath— a move that constricted the river’s flow, killed hundreds of thousands of salmon, and choked the lifeblood of the Yurok Nation in Northern California. She led the appeal that resulted in the decommissioning of the structures, ultimately ensuring the removal of the dams in 2024, and marking the largest successful dam removal project in world history. Join us to hear the story of a true climate activist and to better understand what it took to actuate change.

While US political news is certainly more than depressing these days, it’s always nice to get a healthy reminder of the many good things that are happening around us. This week on Sea Change Radio we speak to Inside Climate News Science Reporter Bob Berwyn as he prepares to cover next month’s COP 30 conference in Brazil. We look at some of the more positive developments on the biodiversity and rewilding fronts, examine the effectiveness of some recent policies to help animal populations like seabirds and gray wolves bounce back, and talk briefly about what to expect from the upcoming COP 30 conference.

Is America’s love affair with billionaires actually an abusive relationship? This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to author Chuck Collins whose new book, Burned By Billionaires, helps us better understand why having so many ultra-wealthy individuals in this country has a deleterious effect on society. We discuss what Collins calls the idolatry of wealth, look at examples of billionaires harming the environment and the public good (such as in the explosive growth in the private aviation sector), and then break down some practical ways to help solve the problem.

Have you ever thought about how random it seems that gold is worth, well, its weight in gold? This week’s guest on Sea Change Radio, Gustav Peebles, is an anthropologist and monetary policy expert at Stockholm University. He has not only wondered about the way human beings assign value to a particular element on the periodic table, he has pondered what it would look like if we we applied precious valuation to an element that really matters for our own survival, like atmospheric carbon. In his new book, co-written with Benjamin Luzzatto, “The First and Last Bank: Climate Change, Currency, and a New Carbon Commons,” Peebles lays out a novel, scalable way not to just dole out carbon credits, but to actually monetize the conservation of carbon waste. We discuss the fundamentals of a possible carbon banking system, and talk through just how such a concept might roll out.

Studies have shown that international economic aid can be an important component of a developing country’s economy, but that too much aid can actually be harmful, undermining local enterprise and other indicators of independence. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Shannon Fernando, the founder and CEO of Alabaster International, a small nonprofit with some big plans to make a significant impact in the Global South. We look at her organization’s model, learn about the promising African staple crop enset, and discuss the challenges of trying to provide short-term assistance to vulnerable populations while also setting the table for long-term economic health.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 34 million households across America are energy insecure. The Solar for All program was set to provide funding to 60 entities that planned to create or expand existing low-income solar programs and would have enabled 900,000 households nationwide in disadvantaged communities to utilize solar energy to reduce their home energy bills. And yet, the current iteration of the EPA recently announced that the Solar for All Program‘s funding of $7 billion is being terminated. This week on Sea Change Radio – we speak to a solar executive whose organization has had its Solar for All funding rug pulled out from under it. Erica Mackie, the co-founder and co-CEO of the solar nonprofit, GRID Alternatives, joins the program to give us an overview of the services that her organization provides and to discuss the impact of the EPA’s recent decision.

You may have been getting ready to leave the house recently and noticed on your phone that the air quality was going to be less-than-ideal that day. There are a lot of people and technologies behind that seemingly simple process. This week on Sea Change Radio we speak with the CEO of IQAir North America, Glory Dolphin Hammes to learn about her company’s history, its AirVisual product and the evolving field of air quality monitoring. We discuss how crowd sourcing works to give us a clearer picture of air quality, the challenges of getting the word out to the public about unsafe air, particularly in underserved communities, and look at the impact of recent EPA rollbacks.

This week on Sea Change Radio, the second half of our discussion with journalist Nathan Tankus as we continue to try to get a better grip on what’s happening at the Federal Reserve Bank. To quote a recent piece by former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, “control over the Fed gives Trump… more tools for extortion. With control over interest rates, he can get America’s biggest corporations and the world’s biggest nations to bend to his will.” In this part of the conversation with Tankus, we talk a bit more about the attempted firing of Federal Reserve Board governor, Lisa Cook, the historical importance of the Fed’s independence and ponder why Wall Street continues to shrug off all of this unsettling economic news.

The Federal Reserve is supposed to be a non-political entity that, with a steady, measured hand, sets interest rates and economic policy in the United States. But, as we are seeing time and time again under this current Administration, absolutely nothing is sacred. If there are levers of power in reach, they will be tested by this authoritarian regime. This week on Sea Change Radio, the first half of our two-part conversation with Nathan Tankus, a journalist and the President of Notes on the Crises, who’s been covering the Fed closely for many years. We hear about the history of the Federal Reserve, learn why its independence is pivotal, and discuss the recent attempts by the Trump Administration to fire the Fed’s first Black woman governor, Lisa Cook, for the flimsiest of reasons.

Just because we live in an age of science, marked by mobile computing, space exploration, and robot cars, doesn’t mean that people don’t still hold firm to beliefs with no scientific basis whatsoever. Case-in-point: rhinos are dying out, due primarily to a human appetite for the supposed healing power of their horns, even though these horns have been shown to have no medicinal properties and may even contain substances toxic to humans. Rhinoceros horns consist of keratin, a dense protein found in human hair and fingernails, but puzzlingly they’re worth more by weight than gold. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Mongabay senior contributing editor Jeremy Hance about the plight of two extremely rare breeds of Indonesian rhinoceros. We discuss efforts being taken to track and preserve them and take a close look at poaching and the brisk trade in illegal rhino horns.

In the 1970’s, coal fueled over half of the U.S. electric grid. Today, that number has dipped below 10%. This week on Sea Change Radio we speak with journalist and author, Bob Wyss, whose new book “Black Gold: The Rise, Reign and Fall of American Coal,“ provides an important retelling of the history of coal in this country. We look at the market forces that shaped coal’s rise, its devastating impact on the environment and human health, and talk about the ludicrous but dangerous attempts by the current Administration to prop up coal even as it’s on life support.

This week we dip into the Sea Change Radio archives to re-explore two discussions about charitable giving. First, we speak with Tyeshia “Ty” Wilson, the Director of Engagement at a nonprofit called Philanthropy Together whose mission is to advance charitable giving that is people-centered and equitable. We learn all about giving circles, how her organization facilitates them, and the importance of Black-led collective giving. Then we turn our attention to learn more about the financial instrument known as a donor advised fund or DAF, from journalist Alex Kotch. We examine the role of DAF fiduciary sponsors, particularly big investment firms like Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab and explore the question of who should be held accountable when a donor advised fund facilitates donations to red-flagged hate groups.