Episodes

In this podcast Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, president of the Foundation for Landscape Studies and founding president of the Central Park Conservancy, discusses her work as a landscape design historian and a writer examining the cultural meaning of place.

In this podcast Yale World Fellow Alexander Verbeek, strategic policy advisory on global issues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, discusses how to build an robust social network — and how to use it effectively to communicate key issues and build a global community.

In this podcast Yale World Fellow Alexander Verbeek, strategic policy advisory on global issues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, discusses how we might address some of the most critical environmental issues with an integrated approach that has governments working together with industry, civil society, and think tanks.

In this podcast Thora Arnorsdottir, senior news editor at the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, documentary film producer, and 2014 Yale World Fellow, discusses her 2012 candidacy for the Presidency of Iceland, and the environmental issues, from natural resource management and green energy to the pressures of increased tourism on fragile ecosystems, that helped shape her platform -- and how those issues are evolving today.

In 2013, Denmark produced more than 40 percent of its electricity from renewable energy -- with more than 85 percent of this renewable energy produced by co-operatives owned and managed by ordinary citizens. In this podcast, Erik Christiansen, of Copenhagen Business School and the Middelgrunen Wind Co-op, outlines how Denmark has approached its renewable energy transition, and why the country is still on track to meet its targets: 50 percent from wind by 2020, 100 percent renewable electricity b...

Climate change does not exist for people in terms of the evidence, however strong it is; it exists in the socially constructed narratives that we have around it. And these narratives become the life and essence of the issue rather than the true and major threat it represents. In this podcast George Marshall, founder of the Climate Outreach Information Network, discusses how we might break the silence that commonly defines the climate change narrative by being open about our convictions and belie...

From battered Asian carp to wild boar bacon, fighting invasive species at the dinner table has become an increasingly popular trend, even catching the attention of NPR commentator Bonny Wolf. While invasivory might make for some interesting recipes — lionfish nachos anyone? —is it an effective strategy for control? In this podcast University of Tennessee Professor Dan Simberloff and Yale postdoc and invasion biologist Sara Kuebbing discuss their concerns with the tactic.

Matt Daggett, Greenpeace International's global campaign leader for forests, visits with Amy Mount, Yale F&ES '15, about the organization's theory of change and climate policy in the US.

Tom Kizzia's recent book, Pilgrim's Wilderness, details the strange (but true) journey of the self-proclaimed Papa Pilgrim, who established his wife and fifteen children in America's largest national park in south-central Alaska. In this podcast, Kizzia visits with Amy Mount, Yale F&ES '14, about how the Pilgrims touched off one of the most-visible controversies between environmentalists, government officials and local land-rights advocates in a generation.

In this podcast Marissa Knodel, Yale F&ES '15, visits with Mary Wood, faculty director of the nationally acclaimed Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program at the University of Oregon School of Law, about her recent book, Nature's Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age. The book highlights flaws in current environmental law practices and offers transformational change based on the public trust doctrine. An ancient and enduring principle, the trust doctrine asserts public proper...

In this podcast, Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy Associate Director Josh Galperin visits with former US Senate staffers Leon Billings and Tom Jorling about the policies and personalities that led to the first major environmental laws in the nation -- and what the history of environmental lawmaking can tell us about the political stalemate we face today.

Journalist and author Todd Wilkinson discusses his recent book, Last Stand: Ted Turner's Quest to Save a Troubled Planet, which offers a diligently detailed, keenly interpreted, and jaw-dropping portrait of a smart, prescient, independent man hard-driven by sorrow and passionately committed to doing lasting good in the world on as large a scale as possible.

Elaine Kub, commodity analyst and author of Mastering the Grain Markets, visit with Erin Schnettler, Yale F&ES '14, about how major grain commodities are produced, traded, and sold in the United States -- and what might be done to make the system more sustainable.

SmartPower President Brian Keane discusses his recent book, Green is Good: Save Money, Make Money, and Help Your Community Profit from Clean Energy, which offers a no-nonsense guide for making clean energy and energy efficiency a part of daily life.

The 2014 Environmental Index ranks countries on high-priority environmental concerns, including air quality, water management, and climate change. The Index, which includes 178 countries, reveals that the world is doing well on improving drinking water and sanitation. Progress in these categories tracks the concerted pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, which have clear targets, strategies, and metrics for assessment on water and sanitation. Poorer environmental performance is seen in ar...

Maine farmer Kevin Poland visits with YCELP Associate Director Josh Galperin about the local food sovereignty movement. Proponents of the movement would like to see food safety regulations handled at a local rather than the federal or state level, but the issue has proved divisive.

Dr. Cameron Wake, a research associate professor in climatology at the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space at the University of New Hampshire, leads a research program investigating regional climate and environmental change through the analysis of ice cores, instrumental data, and phenological records, with a focus on the northeast United States, the Arctic, and central Asia. In this podcast, he visits with YCELP researcher Amy Weinfurter about his work, both at UNH and at Climate...

The 63 cities in the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group contain 8 percent of the world's population, have a GDP the size of China's -- and the potential to reduce the global carbon emissions by a billion tons. In this podcast Rit Aggarwala, the former director of long-term planning and sustainability for New York City discusses megacities' leadership in addressing climate change and PlaNYC, with its goal to reduce New York City's carbon footprint by more than 30 percent by 2030.

The Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI), a non-profit administered by Florida State University, maintains a comprehensive database of the state’s biological resources, a critical resource for policymakers and stakeholders working on conservation projects. In this podcast, Jason D. Schwartz, Yale F&ES ’13, visits with Gary Knight, FNAI director and 2013 Dorothy S. McCluskey Visiting Fellow in Conservation at F&ES, about why measurement matters in conservation and how we might more effectively ...

If you see something wrong, you should do something about it: this ethos has inspired Janet Dalziell throughout her career at Greenpeace International, where she is the director of global development and a member of the senior management team. In this podcast, Ms. Dalziell visits with Amy Mount, Yale F&ES '14, about her time at Greenpeace, the organization's priorities and strategic deployment of non-violent direct action, and the plight of the Arctic 30, the group of activists protesting oil dr...

For island and coastal nations, rising sea levels pose an urgent threat; indeed, we're already seeing climate-change-driven migration -- a process threatens to create empty states by draining communities of skills and tax revenue even before the full physical impacts of climate change hit. In this podcast, Maxine Burkett, Associate Professor at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii, and the former director of the Center for Island Climate Adaptation and Policy, visi...

In the first of a two-part podcast, Gunnar Knapp, Director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska, discusses his work at ISER and the challenges of researching and implementing public policy that protects the environment and promotes development, keeping the long-term nuances of a decision in mind.

In the second of a two-part podcast, Mark Kresowik, eastern region deputy director for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, talks about the campaign's success, the benefits of political pressure versus analytical arguments in clean energy advocacy, and grassroots action in address climate change.

In the first of a two-part podcast, Mark Kresowik, the eastern region deputy director for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, talks about his work as a community organizer and the importance of grassroots action for addressing climate change.