How Car Dependency Makes Life Worse, More Dangerous, And Tears Society Apart (w/ Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon)
Release Date: 10/29/2025
How Climate Change Is Being Covered Now (w/ Evlondo Cooper)
The Climate Pod
Become a paid subscriber to our newsletter/podcast, , to help support this show! It's fun. All the cool kids are doing it! -------------------- Before the end of the year, I had my annual conversation with the always wonderful Evlondo Cooper, senior writer with the climate and energy program at Media Matters. In this conversation, we explore the new challenges of climate reporting that we saw unfold in the politically charged environment of 2025. We looke at the specific changes under the Trump administration and how a continued lack of diverse voices in climate coverage is helping to...
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What Motivates Climate Criminals? (w/ Dr. Julia Shaw)
The Climate Pod
Become a paid subscriber to our newsletter/podcast, , to help support this show! It's fun. All the cool kids are doing it! -------------------- This week, we explore a fundamental question at the heart of the climate crisis: why are so many people willing to destory the environment? This is something I think about a lot and can be infurating. It's also a more complicated story when you really dig into the motivators. To find out why environmental crims happens, Dr. Julia Shaw, a criminal psychologist and author of , is on the show. She explains the intersection of criminal...
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A Fascinating, In-Depth Look At The State Of The Global Environment (w/ Sir Professor Robert Watson)
The Climate Pod
Become a paid subscriber to our newsletter/podcast, , to help support this show! It's fun. All the cool kids are doing it! ------ This week, we're taking a deep dive into the UNEP fascinating, new with legendary climate scientist Sir Professor Robert Watson. We discuss the state (and accelerating pace) of global warming and environmental destruction. Watson explains how emissions continue to climb, what's happened since the Paris Agreement, the state of biodiversity loss, land degradation, and air pollution, and much more. He also explains the transformative investments and changes...
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The Paris Reckoning: Adaptation (w/ Susannah Fisher)
The Climate Pod
Become a paid subscriber to our newsletter/podcast, , to help support this show! It's fun. All the cool kids are doing it! ------------- We're coming up on the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement. In this new series from The Climate Pod, we're looking back on the global pact to determine: how have things changed since 2015 and what has the Paris Agreement accomplished? Our first episode was on . This week, we're looking at the role of adaptation. In the decade that has past since the Paris Agreement was signed, emissions have continued to climb and the globe has continued to...
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The Human Costs Of The US Anti-Green Agenda (w/ Sharon Lerner)
The Climate Pod
Become a paid subscriber to our newsletter/podcast, , to help support this show! It's fun. All the cool kids are doing it! ------------- When talking about climate change, it's easy to get caught up in the scientific terms. Carbon emissions, parts per million, global average temperature, etc. But I always want to make sure I'm framing this conversation in the human impacts that result from the crisis. That's why I wanted to have Sharon Lerner back on the show this week. Sharon Lerner is a journalist and author at ProPublica, where she cover health and the environment and the agencies that...
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COP30: Examining The Results And Broken Process (w/ Oliver Milman and Joseph Winters)
The Climate Pod
Become a paid subscriber to our newsletter/podcast, , to help support this show! It's fun. All the cool kids are doing it! ------------- Another annual UN climate change conference is in the books. So, what did it accomplish? This week, The Guardian's Oliver Milman joins the show to breakdown the results of COP30. We discuss why many thought the conference was underwhelming, the final decisions on a fossil fuel phaseout, finance for adaptation, and improving Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). We also talk about the lack of agreement on combating deforestation, the United States...
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The Paris Reckoning: Extreme Heat (w/ Dr. Kristina Dahl)
The Climate Pod
Become a paid subscriber to our newsletter/podcast, , to help support this show! It's fun. All the cool kids are doing it! ------------- We're coming up on the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement. In this new series from The Climate Pod, we're looking back on the global pact to determine: how have things changed since 2015 and what has the Paris Agreement accomplished? To kick off the series, Dr. Kristina Dahl, vice president for Science at Climate Central and the co-author of the new report joins the show to talk about how our understanding and projections of extreme heat have...
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Why Global Climate Action Really Fails (w/ Jessica F. Green)
The Climate Pod
Become a paid subscriber to our newsletter/podcast, , to help support this show! It's fun. All the cool kids are doing it! -------- Are global leaders trying to solve the wrong climate problem? In this episode, Professor Jessica Green aruges that too often governments and institutions have misdiagnosed the core issues of the climate crisis and are going about solutions in all the wrong ways as a result. In her new book, , she focuses on the power dynamics between fossil fuel asset owners and green asset owners and why it's critical to understand this as the central fight at the...
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COP30 Preview (w/ TIME's Justin Worland)
The Climate Pod
Become a paid subscriber to our newsletter/podcast, , to help support this show! It's fun. All the cool kids are doing it! This week, Justin Worland, senior correspondent at TIME, is back on the show to delve into the COP30 and what you will want to know about this critical convening of world leaders. As one of the top journalists covering climate change and international climate policy, Justin shares his perspective on the evolving nature of these global conferences and what's actually at stake this year in Brazil. We explore the shift from traditional negotiation-focused...
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How Car Dependency Makes Life Worse, More Dangerous, And Tears Society Apart (w/ Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon)
The Climate Pod
Become a paid subscriber to our newsletter/podcast, , to help support this show! It's fun. All the cool kids are doing it! This week, we dive into the transformative potential of a world less reliant on automobiles and ask the question: "why aren't we more honest about the harms caused by our car dependency?" We're joined by the amazing Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon, co-hosts of "The War on Cars" podcast and co-authors of the new book, "Life After Cars," to explores the deep-seated cultural and economic ties to car dependency and the urgent need to change it. We look at how car culture...
info_outlineBecome a paid subscriber to our newsletter/podcast, The Climate Weekly, to help support this show! It's fun. All the cool kids are doing it!
This week, we dive into the transformative potential of a world less reliant on automobiles and ask the question: "why aren't we more honest about the harms caused by our car dependency?" We're joined by the amazing Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon, co-hosts of "The War on Cars" podcast and co-authors of the new book, "Life After Cars," to explores the deep-seated cultural and economic ties to car dependency and the urgent need to change it. We look at how car culture became intertwined with the American dream and the historical and societal factors that have perpetuated this problem.
Sarah and Doug discuss the environmental and social costs of our car-centric infrastructure, including pollution, social disconnection, and the harms on children's development. We delve into the challenges and opportunities of transitioning to electric vehicles, acknowledging their benefits while cautioning against simply replacing one form of car dependency with another.
Finally, we look at very real examples of change like the bike bus movement in the United States and the transformative policies implemented by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo to reduce car use. We talk about how these stories illustrate the power of grassroots activism and political courage to create more livable, car-free spaces.
Sarah Goodyear is a journalist and author who has covered cities and transportation for publications such as Grist, CityLab, and Streetsblog. Doug Gordon is a TV producer and writer who is also a neighborhood safe streets advocate, better known online as Brooklyn Spoke.
Read Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile
By Sarah Goodyear, Doug Gordon and Aaron Naparstek
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