Podcast Episodes

Will We Artificially Cool the Planet? The Science and Politics of Geoengineering with Ted Parson

The severity of the climate crisis continues to deepen, despite the increased use of renewable energy sources and international policies attempting otherwise. Even as emissions reduction efforts cont…

Published on 9 hours ago

Hacking Human Attachment: The Loneliness Crisis, Cognitive Atrophy and other Personal Dangers of AI | RR 20

Mainstream conversations about artificial intelligence tend to center around the technology's economic and large-scale impacts. Yet it's at the individual level where we're seeing AI's most potent ef…

Published on 1 week ago

The Quadruple Bifurcation | Frankly 112

In this week's Frankly, Nate outlines four bifurcations that are likely to underpin the human experience in the near future. While the broad biophysical realities of energy and ecology underpin our c…

Published on 1 week, 5 days ago

Terror Management Theory: How Existential Dread Has Shaped the World with Sheldon Solomon

Many of us wrestle with the unsettling truth that everyone – including ourselves and those we love – will one day die. Though this awareness is uncomfortable, research suggests that the human capacit…

Published on 2 weeks ago

The Three Most Important Words We're Taught Not to Say

In this week's Frankly, Nate considers the ways in which our social species overvalues false-confidence rather than the more honest and inquisitive response of "I don't know." He invites us to consid…

Published on 2 weeks, 5 days ago

Challenging Monopoly Power: Why Local Business is Better for People, the Planet, and Your Wallet with Stacy Mitchell

Monopolistic business practices have been illegal in the United States for more than a century. Yet, monopoly power continues to accelerate in our modern commercial landscape. Large, powerful corpora…

Published on 3 weeks ago

What Sloths Teach Us About the Superorganism

In this week's Frankly, Nate reflects on the multiple metaphors brought to mind via a single photograph, which depicts a sloth climbing a barbed wire fence in Costa Rica. Beyond evoking compassion fo…

Published on 3 weeks, 5 days ago

Will Coral Reefs Be Gone by 2050? How Bleaching, Acidification, and Ocean Heating are Killing Coral Reefs with Ove Hoegh-Guldberg

Twenty-five years ago, a landmark paper warned that the world's coral reefs could vanish by 2050. Now, halfway to that projected date (and amid ever more frequent coral bleaching events), that grim p…

Published on 4 weeks ago

Is the U.S. Electric Grid Stable? Policy, Renewables, and Who Is Responsible If The Grid Fails with Meredith Angwin

For many people in the modern world, electricity powers everything we do. Yet we take for granted how power flows in the background, seemingly always accessible to us just by flipping a switch. In fa…

Published on 1 month ago

Peak Oil, Ponzi Pyramids, and Planetary Boundaries

To view the graphs Nate is referring to in this episode, please click here.

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In this week's Frankly, Nate returns from New York City Climate Week with fresh reflections on the disconnect between …

Published on 1 month, 1 week ago