Sustainable Transitions Podcast: Recent Episodes
Stefanie Lyn Becker
A podcast exploring our transition to a low-carbon society, the communities that lead the way, and the people who support them.
Today’s podcast is with Dr. Bernd Hezel, the Creative Scientist at Climate Media Factory.
I talk to Bernd about the work of Climate Media Factory, how they create their content, and who they work with. We discuss how Climate Media Factory got started and its plan for the future. Lastly, we also discuss the potential role of Climate Media Factory and science communication in a sustainable transition.
Today’s podcast is with Mr. David Landholm, a PhD student at Humboldt University and a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. His work focuses on understanding local, regional and global causes of deforestation.
I talk to David about how he got into the topic of deforestation. He explains the type of data he uses depending on the scale of the research. He explains how conflicts and trade impact deforestation as well as how policy can encourage or discourage it. Lastly, we discuss where he believes the future of this type of research is heading.
Today’s podcast is with Mr. Alexander Breit, a member of Transition Town Frankfurt. Transition Town Frankfurt is a community-based initiative in Frankfurt focused on tackling issues such as climate change and peak oil.
Today’s podcast is a little bit different. Instead of me interviewing a guest, I discuss my own research on the topic of disasters and transitions.
I talk about how I got into the topic of disasters and transitions. I explain what is a post-disaster transition to lower vulnerability. I discuss what such a transition would look like and use Cyclone Nargis as an example. Lastly, I discuss why it is important to understand post-disaster transitions and what we can do to make sure that we are less vulnerable to the next disaster.
Today’s podcast is a little bit different. Instead of me interviewing a guest, I discuss my own research on the topic of disasters and transitions.
I talk about how I got into the topic of disasters and transitions. I explain what is a post-disaster transition to lower vulnerability. I discuss what such a transition would look like and use Cyclone Nargis as an example. Lastly, I discuss why it is important to understand post-disaster transitions and what we can do to make sure that we are less vulnerable to disasters in the future. You can contact me at: www.sustainabletransitionsblog.com sustainabletransitions@gmail.com
Podcast Outline
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Introduction (0:00)
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Introduction section: Big ideas
a. What first drew you studying food systems and climate change? (0:50)
b. Is that what first drew you to the topic? (2:22)
c. What were the main goals of your research? (3:34)
d. So Malthus, a lot of people think that he was wrong. Do you think that is changing now with climate change (5:02)
e. How do you typically conduct your analysis? (7:23)
- Details
a. How do our diets affect climate change? (8:35)
b. What is a ruminant and non-ruminant animal? (10:42)
c. And so which one is worse for the environment, the cows and the goats? (11:01)
d. How will our changing diets affect the climate in the future? (11:05)
e. So there have been some movements lately, for example vegetarianism and veganism seem to be ever more popular, did you see anything like that in your results or data? (12:28)
f. What is food waste and how do you measure food waste?? (16:24)
g. How do you measure food waste? (17:32)
h. Where do people waste the most food? (19:43)
i. Why do you think that is-do you get wealthier and you can just afford to throw out more food or are you buying different food that goes bad faster? (21:04)
j. What is a yield gap? Why does it matter in the context of climate change? (21:59)
k. How would we improve the yield gap? (24:12)
l. Climate change, from my understanding at least, we can expect even less predictable weather even more diseases in crops-do you think it will make it even harder to decrease the yield gap in the future? (25:57)
m. Which countries have the biggest yield gap? (26:45)
- What does it mean
a. Why do you think that understanding the relationship between food systems and climate change is important? (27:09)
b. What can the public do to address some of these problems? (27:46)
c. Is it better to eat local meat or vegetables from far away? (29:59)
d. What types of policies would you recommend to deal with these issues? (30:55)
- Sign off (32:14)
What to know more about Prajal’s work? Check out the links below:
Pradhan, Prajal, Dominik E. Reusser, and Juergen P. Kropp. "Embodied greenhouse gas emissions in diets." PloS one 8.5 (2013): e62228. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0062228
Pradhan, Prajal, et al. "Embodied crop calories in animal products." Environmental Research Letters 8.4 (2013): 044044. http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044044/meta
Pradhan, Prajal, et al. "Food self-sufficiency across scales: How local can we go?." Environmental science & technology 48.16 (2014): 9463-9470. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es5005939
Pradhan, Prajal, et al. "Closing yield gaps: How sustainable can we be?." PloS one 10.6 (2015): e0129487. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0129487
Hiç, Ceren, et al. "Food surplus and its climate burdens." Environmental science & technology 50.8 (2016): 4269-4277. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b05088
Today’s podcast is with Wei Weng, a PhD student at the Humboldt University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
I talk to Wei about how she first got interested in studying aerial rivers. She explains what the difference is between aerial rivers and moisture recycling, why she focuses on the Amazon, and how she goes about studying aerial rivers and moisture recycling. We also examine which areas are the most sensitive to upwind land use changes and why understanding aerial rivers is important.
Today’s podcast is with Dr. Mady Olonscheck, one of the founders of GreenAdapt.
I talk to Mady about the how GreenAdapt was started, including her inspiration from both talks to school children and her PhD. We also discuss how GreenAdapt works, how the company looks at climate change impacts, and what GreenAdapt has planned for the future. We also examine why the municipalities are so important for climate change mitigation.
Today’s podcast continues my discussion with Dr. Ramana Gudipudi and Dr. Luis Carvalho Costa who if you recall both do work on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions..
Today’s podcast discusses the implications of both Ramana’ and Luis’ work as well as what they think we should do to combat rising greenhouse gas emissions.
Today’s podcast is with Dr. Ramana Gudipudi and Dr. Luis Carvalho Costa who both do work on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ramana’s work focuses on reducing emissions in cities whereas Luis’ work focuses on which lifestyle and technology changes reduce emissions.
I talk to Ramana and Luis about their recent work including why we should be reducing greenhouse gas emissions, their approaches to studying how to reduce emissions, and what are the goals of the research. We also discuss their findings on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Part 2 of our discussion will be coming soon so stay tuned!
Today’s podcast is with Dr. Bin Zhou who conducts research on the urban heat island effect. I talk to Bin about his recent work on the urban heat island effect including how Bin got interested in the topic and how he conducts his work. We also discuss how city size, seasons, fractality, and anisometry influence the heat island effect. We also explore what can be done to reduce the heat island effect and how it relates to climate change.
In the inaugural podcast episode, I talk to Gregor von der Wall about urban community gardening in the German captial of Berlin. We discuss how Gregor got involved in community gardening and what makes community gardening so different. We also explore some big findings from his thesis on what problems urban community gardens face and how some of the gardens tackle these problems. Lastly, we discuss how you can become involved in urban community gardening and an urban gardening transition.