Breakthrough has long argued that fighting climate change is mainly a matter of making clean energy cheap, and — thanks in large part to federal deployment subsidies — this is precisely what we've done for solar and onshore wind technologies. B

Agriculture in the Time of Coronavirus

Jun 8th, 2020 31m 25s

Kyle Bridgeforth is a fifth-generation farmer at Bridgeforth Farms, a row crop operation headquartered in Tanner, Alabama. We sat down with him in the fifth week of coronavirus quarantine — and after a tumultuous few years of international trad

Deployment-Led Innovation

May 18th, 2020 34m 41s

When it comes to innovative technologies, which comes first: deployment, or the ability to financially compete? Jigar Shah – a seasoned podcast host himself and founder of clean energy financing company Generate Capital – is a firm belie

For Decarbonization and Economic Recovery, Start with the Low-Hanging Fruit

May 4th, 2020 43m 38s

At Breakthrough, we’ve long viewed climate as a problem that would be addressed obliquely with other challenges — making clean energy cheap, building modern infrastructure, growing affordable food, and the like. The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has

Electricity Makes the World Go Round

Apr 20th, 2020 37m 58s

Rehena Jamadar, a 44-year-old woman living in a small Indian village, has only had electricity for the last 14 years of her life. If she had been able to have the lights on earlier in her life, she says, she would have gone to university

Avocado Politics

Apr 6th, 2020 39m 40s

Nils Gilman has a warning for us: watch out for the coming Avocado Politics. It’s a term the Berggruen Institute president uses to describe a (Brown Shirt) fascist politics wrapped in a (green) environmental layer. Despite popular opinion, Nils

"You can’t put a band-aid over an open artery."

Mar 24th, 2020 34m 47s

Leah Stokes is the author of the new book Short Circuiting Policy, a professor at UC Santa Barbara, and a widely-known voice on energy issues. We sat down with her right after Super Tuesday 2020 for her thoughts on what the results mean for cli

"You can’t put a band-aid over an open artery."

Mar 23rd, 2020 34m 47s

What went wrong with big nuclear?

Mar 9th, 2020 26m 15s

A more innovative nuclear sector will require tilting the playing field away from large, incumbent firms and toward small, entrepreneurial startups. Today we sit down with Lenka Kollar, director of strategy and external relations at one of thos

Tasting is Believing

Feb 24th, 2020 31m 33s

The Impossible Burger launched in 2016, with celebrity chef David Chang at Momofuku. Since then, the product has exploded: now available nationally at Burger King, soon to hit the grocery shelves, on its 2.0 formula (now grillable), and an R&D

A Former Congressman on Republican Climate Action

Feb 10th, 2020 35m 32s

We’re thrilled to welcome Carlos Curbelo for our season opener. Carlos is a former Republican Congressman from Florida's 26th congressional district. While in Congress, he co-founded and co-chaired the Climate Solutions Caucus, a coalition of l

Half for Us, Half for Nature

Nov 25th, 2019 27m 56s

We’re closing Season Three of the Breakthrough Dialogues with a lofty vision: what would it mean to leave half of the earth for nature? Today’s guest, Carly Vynne Baker, is a chief advocate of the Nature Needs Half network who manages to break

Crunching the Climate Numbers

Nov 11th, 2019 29m 3s

Today’s episode answers all your big climate science questions. Alex chats with Zeke Hausfather, Breakthrough’s new Director of Climate and Energy, who joins us with over a decade of experience working as a scientist and researcher in the clean

An Elder Millennial's Climate Journey

Oct 28th, 2019 37m 11s

Julian Brave NoiseCat self-identifies as a “capital C, capital P” Climate Person. He’s a writer and strategist, formerly of 350.org and now at Data for Progress and the Natural History Museum, working to tackle issues of inequality through clim

Ask Us Anything

Oct 14th, 2019 55m 57s

One of the most important tenets of good climate communication is to listen actively to your audience. Environmental problems run deep: they’re about home, identity, lifestyle, and everything beyond and in between. That’s where any productive c

What Climate Communication Can Learn from Theater

Sep 30th, 2019 34m 41s

Jacquelyn Gill, paleoecologist and biogeographer, did a lot of theater growing up. She loved watching Spalding Gray’s monologues, where he would sit on stage and tell a deeply personal narrative about himself. Everything he did was constructed,

Wicked Problems and How to Solve Them

Sep 16th, 2019 35m 24s

Climate change, Jane Flegal argues, does not have a deadline. Yes — it’s an urgent problem that needs addressing, well, yesterday. But we aren’t about to fall from a cliff, or be hit by an asteroid. Jane, Program Officer at the Bernard and Anne

Apocalypse How?

Sep 2nd, 2019 35m 1s

There are few subjects more important than the future of humanity. Bryan Walsh has spent a lot of time thinking about existential risks, how to classify them, whether we care about long-term futures, and why we’re so bad at taking action on cli

Food (In)justice

Aug 19th, 2019 38m 49s

When you think of food justice, the images that probably come to mind are those of urban gardens, fresh produce, and local fare. This conversation with food studies scholar S. Margot Finn swiftly ruptures that vision, arguing that freshness and

Building Bridges for a Stronger Climate Politics

Aug 5th, 2019 32m 49s

Bishop Garrison’s son, Gus, is just over a year old. Nothing is set in stone for him; he’s full of open-minded wonder, curiosity, and exuberance. For Bishop, it’s a perfect representation of the kind of world he’s working to create in his profe

Energy Twitter Out Loud

Jul 22nd, 2019 58m 40s

If you're active on energy Twitter, you might have seen ongoing debates between our deputy director, Alex Trembath (@atrembath), and Vox climate journalist, David Roberts (@drvox). They finally got the chance to hash things out. In our Breakthr

How to Change Your Mind

May 20th, 2019 37m 46s

When was the last time you changed your mind? If you’re anything like the rest of the population, probably not very recently. Stephanie Lepp’s podcast, Reckonings, explores why that is; through interviews with people who have gone through trans

Transforming African Agriculture

May 6th, 2019 28m 56s

Nassib Mugwanya is an outreach officer at the Uganda Biosciences Information Center, which means he brings agricultural research to farmers on the ground. He stands at the nexus, then, of the many clashing ideals over what the future of food sh

Energy for Growth

Apr 22nd, 2019 27m 42s

It is universally true that all rich countries use a lot of energy. This might make you think about in-home systems: refrigerators, lights, etc. But about two-thirds of the energy in an economy is used outside the home. In the US, a typical, mi

Shrinking Agriculture's Footprint

Apr 8th, 2019 30m 32s

For optimal sustainability, which farming practice is best? Miriam Horn, who worked for the Environmental Defense Fund for over ten years, says: it depends. Don’t choose a sweeping solution; farming smart is place-dependent: where can we sacrif