Bionic Planet: Reversing Climate Change by Restoring Nature
We've entered a new epoch: the Anthropocene, and nothing is as it was. Not the trees, not the seas – not the forests, farms, or fields – and not the global economy that depends on all of these. What does this mean for your investments, your family's future, and the future of man? Each week, we dive into these issues to help you Navigate the New Reality.
- Update frequency
- every 23 days
- Average duration
- 50 minutes
- Episodes
- 96
- Years Active
- 2017 - 2025
59 | Why The Sustainable Development Goals Matter (Encore Presentation)
If there's one thing COVID-19 reminds us, it's that global institutions matter. For that reason, I'm replaying this 2016 episode looking at the Sustainable Development Goals.
Forests, Fires, and Jurisdictional Offsets: A Conversation with Naomi Swickard of Verra
Global greenhouse-gas emissions will drop 5.5 percent this year because of COVID-19, but they must drop 7.6 percent every year to meet the Paris Agreement's 1.5C target. Forest carbon offsets provide…
057 | COVID-19 and the Value of Resilience over Efficiency
When US President Donald Trump disbanded his country's pandemic response team, he did so because "I don't like having thousands of people around when we don't need them."
That cost-cutting measure co…
056 | How Costa Rica Grew Both its Forests and its Economy
Costa Rica says it will have zero net greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, and its electrical grid already runs on 99 percent renewable energy.
Today's guest is a key part of its success.
As Minister of…
055 | The Citizens Climate Lobby Wants to Spread the Carbon Wealth
Today's guest, Daniel Palken, volunteers with a group called the Citizens Climate Lobby, or "CCL", which aims to slash US greenhouse-gas emissions by imposing a fee on fossil fuels.
The fee will be b…
054 | Give Us Ecotopia or Give Us Death
Developing countries are the most vulnerable to – and least responsible for – climate change, but new research shows that some of them can dramatically boost their economies by managing their forests…
53: A Marshall Plan for Forests, with Charlotte Streck of Climate Focus
There's a lot of money sloshing around forests, and most of it goes into agricultural subsidies and investments that destroy forests, while only a trickle goes into programs that save them.
That's wh…
52: Natural Climate Solutions Explained (ENCORE PRESENTATION)
On the eve of year-end climate talks in Madrid, I revisit my 2017 conversation with Bronson Griscom, Director of Forest Carbon Science for the Nature Conservancy. He headed up a team of three dozen …
051 | Forests in the Paris Agreement, Part 3: a Conversation with Annie Petsonk of EDF
The third episode of our three-part look at the birth of REDD+, we speak with Annie Petsonk of the Environmental Defense Fund.
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050| Forests in the Paris Climate Agreement, Part 2: Kevin Conrad
In this second part of our three-part series on the history of forests in the Paris Climate Agreement, we hear how REDD+ got its name and made its way into the climate negotiations. Special Guest: Ke…
049 | Forests in the Paris Climate Agreement, Part 1: The Birth of Forest Carbon
2019 is shaping up to be a pivotal summer in a pivotal year in the critical race to meet the climate challenge, with major media finally discovering the role that healthy forests can play in fixing t…
048: Understanding the IPCC’s New Compendium of Science on Climate, Forests, and Farms
We eat to live, but the food we’re eating is killing us – not just because of what it does to our bodies, but because of what it does to our climate.
Beef, for example, comes from cows that burp out …
047 | An Accountability Framework For Deforestation
Environmental NGOs have long pressured companies to reduce their impact on forests, and companies have long complained that every NGO seems to come with different demands.
Now a coalition of more tha…
46| Restoration Economy, Part Two: The Billion-Dollar Foot
It's an article of faith among some on the left that markets and capitalism are the roots of all evil, while some on the right see pure, free markets as the invisible hand of God, and regulation as t…
045 | Nature, Paid on Delivery; with Guest Tim Male
Environmental scientist Tim Male has worked the conservation puzzle from both the NGO and governmental sector -- first with NGOs like Environmental Defense Fund, then as an elected councilman, and fi…
044 | Green New Deal Architect Rhiana Gunn-Wright
We've been fairly US-centric lately, but only because so much is finally happening there. In today's episode, we speak with Rhiana Gunn-Wright of New Consensus. That's the Think Tank that's helping f…
043 | Bees Trees and Burning Bluffs
We're losing pollinators at an alarming rate, which scientists attribute at least in part to the loss of native plants, which evolved alongside hundreds of native pollinators -- including bees, hummi…
042 | The Stealth Plan to Roll Back US Water Protection (First of Two Parts)
Wetlands cover 274 million acres of the United States, and they ultimately provide more than half the country's drinking water, which is one reason the federal government protects them -- or has, unt…
041: ENCORE PRESENTATION: Why the Sustainable Development Goals Really Are a Very Big Bid Deal
We hear a lot about the Sustainable Development Goals, or "SDGs" these days, with major pension funds like Calvert aligning their portfolios with them, and up to $12 trillion in finance, by one estim…
40 | Former Climate Boss Yvo de Boer
Yvo de Boer served as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from August, 2006 to July, 2010; and in November of last year, he became president of t…