A Matter of Degrees
Dr. Leah Stokes, Dr. Katharine Wilkinson
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Top 10 A Matter of Degrees Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best A Matter of Degrees episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to A Matter of Degrees for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite A Matter of Degrees episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
“What Can I Do?” Part 1 — The Personal
A Matter of Degrees
09/15/22 • 55 min
As climate people, we hear this question again and again: “What can I do?” Many of us are trying to figure out how to help address the climate crisis. So, we’re taking on that critical question in a three-part miniseries. The first episode is all about The Personal — key ways we can act on climate in our own lives and create meaningful, durable change. Hint: it involves stoves and cash.
This episode features Sarah Lazarovic, artist, writer, and head of communications and brand at Rewiring America, and Marilyn Waite, managing director of the Climate Finance Fund and author of Sustainability at Work.
For more info on electrifying your home, head to Rewiring America’s guide to Electrify Everything in Your Home. For more info on moving your money, turn to Marilyn’s guide to Sustainable Banking and Investing. Also mentioned: Carbon Collective, Sphere, Atmos Bank, and Earth Equity Advisors.
Be sure to check out Sarah’s comic “100 Things You Can Do to Help in the Climate Crisis,” her book A Bunch of Pretty Things I Did Not Buy, and her newsletter Minimum Viable Planet. We quoted from Leah’s essay “A Field Guide for Transformation,” in the anthology All We Can Save that Katharine co-edited, and Bill McKibben’s invaluable newsletter The Crucial Years.
Next time, our miniseries will turn from the realm of The Personal to the realm of The Professional. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and don’t miss a single episode this season!
2 Listeners
The Stages of Black Climate Grief
A Matter of Degrees
12/15/20 • 39 min
This week, we have a special episode featuring activist and researcher Nikayla Jefferson.
Most of us are in the first stage of climate grief: denial.
But what does it feel like to enter the stage of grief? And how is that grief different for black people?
Even if you’ve seen the impacts of climate change up close, even if you’ve felt the tropical winds whip your cheeks, stood in floodwater knee deep in your own home, watched a fire come down the ridge line, said “wow, I can’t remember a summer this hot” -- you are likely stuck in some state of denial.
In this episode, Nikayla shares her journey breaking through denial and into grief. She also talks with
As a black person, grieving for the planet can look different, feel heavier and more immediate.
Featured in this episode: Nikayla Jefferson, Jacqueline Patterson, and Princella Talley.
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A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio.
For more episodes and transcripts, visit our website.
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The ‘Darth Vader’ of Electric Utilities
A Matter of Degrees
01/07/21 • 51 min
In 2013, a series of attack ads blitzed television sets across Arizona. They warned of a dire threat to senior citizens. Who was the villain? Solar energy.
These ads came from front groups funded by Arizona Public Service, the state’s largest utility. It was part of a years-long fight against rooftop solar that turned ugly.
“I mean, for Star Wars fans, APS became the Darth Vader of electric utilities in America. I mean, I think you would be hard-pressed to find a utility that behaved as badly as APS did in the last decade,” explains former regulator Kris Mayes.
But APS isn’t alone. It’s a prime example of how monopoly utilities abuse their power to influence regulatory decisions and slow clean-energy progress.
What happens if your electric utility starts doing things you don’t agree with? What if they start attacking solar and proposing to build more and more fossil gas plants? What if they actively resist clean energy progress?
Well, you don’t get a choice. You have to buy electricity, and you have to buy it from them. As a customer you’re funding that.
In this episode, we’ll detail how it happened in Arizona -- and how public pressure forced APS’ to come clean.
Featured in this episode: Ryan Randazzo, Kris Mayes, David Pomerantz.
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A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio.
For more episodes and transcripts, visit our website.
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Presenting: How to Save a Planet
A Matter of Degrees
12/22/20 • 48 min
We're pleased to introduce an episode of "How to Save a Planet," produced by our friends at Gimlet and Spotify. The show is co-hosted by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Alex Blumberg.
"How to Save a Planet" has a lot of similarities to our own, so we think our listeners will like the stories they tell. In this week's episode: a story about the Black Lives Matter Movement and how the fight for black lives connects with the struggle for climate justice.
Find more of their episodes here. And stay tuned for our final episode of the season, coming soon.
1 Listener
Cleaning Up the Carbon Mess
A Matter of Degrees
11/19/20 • 43 min
We’ve made a carbon mess. How do we clean it up?
Imagine the atmosphere as an overflowing bathtub. The water keeps gushing from the tap. Clearly, we need to turn it off. We have to bring emissions of heat-trapping gases down to zero, stat.
But even after we do that, we still have a mess on our hands. So, we need to open the drain, let some water out.
In this episode, we’ll explore the different ways we can manage carbon emissions with natural and technological solutions. What are their benefits and drawbacks? And how do we think about them in our broader solutions toolkit?
Featured in this episode: Lisa Song, Judith Schwartz, Jane Zelikova, and Etosha Cave.
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A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio.
For more episodes and transcripts, visit our website.
The Journey of Justice40
A Matter of Degrees
02/16/23 • 48 min
In his early days in office, President Biden took executive action to deliver environmental justice. Are those policies delivering justice in practice? This episode, we talk to EJ activists and federal policymakers about Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which directs 40% of the overall benefits of climate investments toward disadvantaged communities. We explore the decades of organizing that led to this moment, and what it will take now to fulfill the promise of the Justice40 Initiative.
Our special guest host Nikayla Jefferson is back for this episode! She speaks with former People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH Buffalo) Executive Director Rahwa Ghirmatzion; Evergreen Action policy lead Rachel Patterson; and Shalanda Baker, Director of the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), who leads the agency’s Justice40 implementation.
In this episode, Rachel cites the Council on Environmental Quality’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool that aims to identify “disadvantaged communities.” Nikayla names the nonprofit, Justice 40 Accelerator, which is helping community groups building capacity to access government funding. Check out the NY Renews coalition, also mentioned in this episode, and listen to another episode hosted by Nikayla, The Stages of Black Climate Grief.
Next time we follow Katharine on her journey to the Tongass, a vast temperate rainforest in Alaska and a massive carbon sink, alongside the people and creatures who call it home. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and don’t miss a single episode this season!
Healing the Soil, Healing Ourselves
A Matter of Degrees
07/19/21 • 37 min
Abuse of soil, the atmosphere, and communities of color have gone hand in hand. Through reclaiming ancestral connection to the soil, Black farmers are healing the entangled harms of colonization, capitalism, and White supremacy and moving agricultural climate solutions forward in the process.
In this episode, we feature an audio essay that wrestles with these themes. The essay is titled “Black Gold” by Leah Penniman, an activist, farmer, and founder of Soul Fire Farm.
As Leah puts it: “In healing our relationship with soil, we heal the climate, and we heal ourselves.”
This is an excerpt from the audiobook version of All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, an anthology of essays, poetry, and art co-edited by Katharine Wilkinson and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.
The audiobook version of this essay is read by award-winning audiobook narrator Bahni Turpin.
Resources:
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A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio. For more episodes and transcripts, visit our website.
“What Can I Do?” Part 2 — The Professional
A Matter of Degrees
09/29/22 • 49 min
In this episode, we continue to unpack the question “What can I do?” The second installment of our miniseries zeroes in on our professional lives — ways to approach climate action within the workplace. We learn that almost any job can be a climate job. And, if need be, we can pursue “career divestment.”
This episode features Amanda Suter Gallardo, deputy petroleum administrator for the City of Los Angeles and former Terra.do fellow, and Jamie Alexander, founding director of Drawdown Labs at the climate solutions nonprofit Project Drawdown.
For more info on the online climate school Amanda attended, head to Terra.do. For more info on making your job a climate job, check out Jamie’s TEDx Talk and Drawdown Labs’ guide to Climate Solutions at Work. Want to build community and seed climate action with colleagues? Try All We Can Save Circles tailored for the workplace. Need help glimpsing your professional future? Take the Green New Careers assessment from the Sunrise Movement.
We also mentioned The Drawdown Review (free to download!), Dr. Beth Sawin’s Twitter wisdom, the company Canopy (formerly RightHandGreen), the Instagram account Future Earth, co-curated by Max Moinian, and UndauntedK12, started by Jonathan Klein.
Next time, our miniseries will turn from the realm of The Professional to the realm of The Political. Are you digging the show? Be sure to subscribe, and leave us a rating or review!
The Devious Plan to Keep Us Hooked on Gas
A Matter of Degrees
08/09/21 • 57 min
Advocates are turning their attention to a new front in the climate war: the fossil-gas hookups in our homes that fuel burners, boilers, and other household appliances.
If we want to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we need to electrify the hundreds of millions of machines inside our homes and buildings as fast as possible. But the gas industry won’t go down without a fight.
Gas industry front groups are infiltrating neighborhood groups, hiring social media influencers, and barraging citizens with messages in order to stir up controversy around local bans on new fossil gas connections. That’s exactly what happened to the residents of Santa Barbara, California last year.
This week, we'll hear from activists, reporters, and industry professionals who are following the gas industry’s battle to keep fossil fuels in our homes.
How far will gas companies go to stop electrification? And where does the electrification movement stand?
Leah Stokes speaks with Sierra Club's Santa Barbara Chapter Chair Katie Davis; EarthJustice Senior Attorney Matt Vespa; Earther Staff Writer Dharna Noor; and Former BlocPower Senior Strategist Associate Rose Stephens-Booker.
Resources:
- RMI research on the dangers of gas stoves
- Dharna Noor on why gas is so problematic in our homes
- Saul Griffith on electrifying everything, starting now
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A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio. For more episodes and transcripts, visit our website.
Paid in Blood
A Matter of Degrees
09/16/21 • 35 min
In the jungles of the Brazilian Amazon, groups of farmers and their families get by on what they can grow with the land beneath their feet. They're known in Brazil as “landless workers,” a social movement with the goal of increasing land access and ownership for the country’s rural poor.
These landless workers -- sometimes called land guardians or protectors -- are a symbol for the power imbalances that have destroyed the Amazon.
Atmos Climate Editor Yessenia Funes brings us a story about one landless worker named Fernando dos Santos Araújo.
In 2017, Fernando witnessed the massacre of his fellow landless workers on a small farm in Pará, Brazil. His story illustrates the violent tactics that the government and wealthy landowners use to protect their power.
This episode features Ana Aranha, a documentary filmmaker in Brazil, and Ivi Oliveira from the nonprofit Frontline Defenders.
Resources:
- The Print Version Of Yessenia’s Story
- Frontline Defenders
- Global Witness 2020 Environmental and Land Defenders Report
- The Frontline, Yessenia’s bi-weekly newsletter
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A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio. For more episodes, visit our website.
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FAQ
How many episodes does A Matter of Degrees have?
A Matter of Degrees currently has 48 episodes available.
What topics does A Matter of Degrees cover?
The podcast is about Society & Culture, Documentary, Podcasts and Government.
What is the most popular episode on A Matter of Degrees?
The episode title '“What Can I Do?” Part 1 — The Personal' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on A Matter of Degrees?
The average episode length on A Matter of Degrees is 45 minutes.
How often are episodes of A Matter of Degrees released?
Episodes of A Matter of Degrees are typically released every 14 days.
When was the first episode of A Matter of Degrees?
The first episode of A Matter of Degrees was released on Oct 7, 2020.
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