A Matter of Degrees
Give up your climate guilt. Sharpen your curiosity. Join Dr. Leah Stokes and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson as they tell stories about the powerful forces behind climate change — and the tools we have to fix it. This show makes sense of big climate questions and critical topics. Our episodes are filled with stories of bold climate leadership, groundbreaking campaigns, and people doing their best to be part of the solution. A Matter of Degrees is produced in partnership with FRQNCY Media, The 2035 Initiative at UC Santa Barbara, and The All We Can Save Project.
Episodes
July 20, 2023 • 59 mins
Welcome back for a bonus episode of A Matter of Degrees! We were lucky enough to sit down with Rebecca Solnit — author, historian, and climate activist — to talk about her newest climate anthology, Not Too Late. Leah and Nikayla Jefferson both wrote essays for the book and joined Rebecca onstage for this live episode.
Not Too Late gets at the tough, vital work of culture change and features diverse climate voices from around the w...
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March 2, 2023 • 51 mins
In our season three finale, we’re transporting listeners to the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world and a vital carbon sink: the Tongass.
Katharine and Leah investigate the impact of decades of industrial logging in Southeast Alaska and political debates pitting ecology against economy. We learn from the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people, who have lived on and with these lands for more than 10,000 years. And we di...
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February 16, 2023 • 48 mins
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 n...
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February 2, 2023 • 59 mins
Electric utilities are falling short on climate action. To explain why, we’re bringing back our season one finale. This episode features former utilities regulator Kris Mayes, who recently won a nail-biting election to become the second woman and first openly LGBTQ attorney general of Arizona. Go, Kris!
Since season one, Leah has been busy investigating utilities’ past and present role spreading climate denial, doubt, and delay. Y...
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January 19, 2023 • 50 mins
In this episode, we explore the growing impact of heat on people and the planet. We talk to scientists and “climate detectives” trying to hold the perpetrators of this unprecedented global temperature increase accountable.
Leah and Katharine speak with Neza Xiuhtecutli, executive director of the Farmworker Association of Florida; Kate Marvel, climate science writer and physicist at Columbia University and NASA; and Richard Heede, ...
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January 5, 2023 • 55 mins
At the start of 2023, we’re reflecting on past progress and setting climate intentions, both small and large, for the year ahead.
And we want to hear from you! Has A Matter of Degrees shifted your perspective or moved you to action? Do you have climate goals for 2023? Share your story with us.
To inspire and ground us for the new year, we share a powerful audio essay from the bestselling anthology All We Can Save: “Indigenous Pro...
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December 15, 2022 • 44 mins
The fossil fuel industry is banking its future on petrochemicals — the toxic precursor to plastics. In this episode, Katharine and Leah speak with activists who are fighting back against petrochemicals in “sacrifice zones” across America, from the Ohio River Valley to the Gulf Coast. Learn where petrochemicals come from, how they harm people, places, and the climate, and why the fossil fuel industry wants them as a lifeline.
We h...
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December 1, 2022 • 37 mins
In this episode, we investigate corporate climate commitments and how to make them stronger. We get to the root of zero-emissions pledges and greenwashing — specifically in the oil and gas industry.
Dr. Paasha Mahdavi, associate professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, joins us to report this story. Paasha talks with Louise Rouse, a consultant who teams up with investors to push corporations ...
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November 17, 2022 • 47 mins
This episode delves into the murky world of cryptocurrency and its impact on our planet. Join Katharine and Leah as they discover how digital currencies are breathing new life into previously shuttered coal plants across the United States.
This episode features Alex de Vries, data scientist and founder of Digiconimist, an online platform that tracks Bitcoin’s energy consumption; Anne Hedges, the director of policy and legislative...
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November 3, 2022 • 59 mins
This episode is all about feelings. You’ve heard the phrase “climate grief,” right? But how do we deal with what it does to our hearts, minds, and bodies? And how might it impact the climate action we take?
This episode features Dr. Britt Wray, a Stanford-based author and researcher on climate and mental health; somatic coach and climate grief worker, Selin Nurgün; and Zen priest and Environmental Defense Fund senior scientist, Dr...
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October 20, 2022 • 47 mins
"We must understand that we are in a very specific moment in time, and this window is going to shut on us. But it doesn’t have to shut on us, if we act.” — Vice President Kamala Harris on A Matter of Degrees
Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, we had the honor of joining Vice President Harris live in San Francisco for a conversation about climate leadership, justice, and solutions. She underlined the critical importance of the cu...
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October 13, 2022 • 46 mins
The third and final installment of our miniseries considers the question “What can I do?” from a political perspective. Our expert guests share stories of nailbiter elections for local office and the victorious legislative campaign to ban gas in new buildings in New York City. We lay out a four-step guide to getting pro-climate candidates elected, supporting them in office, and keeping them accountable.
This episode features Carol...
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September 29, 2022 • 49 mins
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 fello...
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September 15, 2022 • 55 mins
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, artis...
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September 8, 2022 • 2 mins
Welcome back, climate-curious friends — it’s time for Season 3 of A Matter of Degrees. This season we’ll tackle some critical topics and big questions, starting with one we’re all asking when it comes to the climate crisis: “What can I do?”
Season 3 kicks off (September 15!) with a three-part miniseries to answer that question. We’ll talk with some brilliant folks and illuminate what we can do personally, professionally, and polit...
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August 3, 2022 • 63 mins
Welcome back to A Matter of Degrees! While we’ve been hard at work producing season three of the show, the climate movement has been going through a lot of twists and turns. Most recently, after announcing he would not support climate investments in a budget reconciliation deal, Senator Joe Manchin abruptly made a historic climate deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA).
The bill i...
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September 29, 2021 • 52 mins
This episode is a collaboration between A Matter Of Degrees and the Gimlet podcast How To Save A Planet.
Take a look at many of the spaces where climate-related decisions are being made — from government to business to media — and you'll notice a numbers problem. Despite being roughly half the people on the planet, women rarely have equal representation in critical climate decision-making spaces. This isn’t just bad for women. It’s...
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September 16, 2021 • 35 mins
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.
...
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August 30, 2021 • 41 mins
This episode is a collaboration between A Matter Of Degrees and the Gimlet podcast How To Save A Planet.
Coal-fired power plants are closing at record rates. But many are still scheduled to remain operational for the foreseeable future -- despite losing lots of money every year.
How do we shut these uneconomic coal plants down faster? One answer: coal debt securitization.
Coal debt securitization is like refinancing a mortgage. Sta...
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August 16, 2021 • 42 mins
Since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed in 2015, banks and large investors have dumped $3.8 trillion into fossil fuels.
It's a staggering number. This is why writer and activist Bill McKibben calls money the "oxygen" that fuels the fire of global warming. While the wildfires burning around the world are getting worse each year, it’s like the world's bankers are blowing on those fires, making them even bigger.
For this episode,...
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