Trump on Earth

We are now three months away from an election that could determine A LOT, including what our future climate looks like. On this episode, we discuss the 2020 election through the prism of climate change. We talk with Marianne Levelle, a reporter with Inside Climate News, about Joe Biden's evolving climate policy and why he's gotten more aggressive on the issue. And we talk with Time magazine correspondent Justin Worland who recently wrote a cover story for the magazine titled "2020 is our last, best chance to save the planet.

Trump’s first months in office have left us with more questions than answers. But on environmental policy, some themes are emerging that will likely shape a lot of what’s to come. In this week’s episode, we dig into three key storylines to watch with Rebecca Leber of Mother Jones and The Atlantic’s Rob Meyer.

As Congress pays out more than 36 billion dollars in disaster relief, the General Accounting Office recommends that the federal government find ways to minimize the economic impacts of climate change. President Obama started moving in this direction. He signed an executive order requiring infrastructure like roads and bridges be designed to survive flooding and other consequences of climate change. But President Trump issued an executive order that pretty much undid it. Our guest is Daniel Kreeger. He's the executive director of the Association of Climate Change Officers. which helps businesses and others plan for climate change. Kreeger says we built infrastructure - like highways and sewers - based on the weather we’ve had over the last century. But that’s changing.

Harvard is one of the latest in a series of wealthy institutions around the world announcing steps towards pulling their investments in the fossil fuel industry. But Harvard’s announcement has been called too little, too late. Bill McKibben, author of “The End of Nature” and cofounder of 350.org, reflects on what the divestment movement has achieved so far and how it all began. Also, why racial justice goes hand in hand with the fight for a cleaner environment, and the big takeaways that the coronavirus pandemic has for the climate crisis.

This episode comes from our friends at Living on Earth, another podcast about the environment that you should check out.

Joe Biden ran considerably to the right of his top rivals on climate policy. But now that he is the nominee, the Biden campaign is trying to convince climate activists that his campaign is taking the issue seriously.