Best The Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy Podcasts (2025)

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30: How Cheaper, Safer, and Cleaner Bricks Could Revolutionize Homebuilding Across Asia 35:29

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3h ago35:29

35:29

Episode Intro: Ross Chambless: In September 2025, the Wilkes Center awarded its annual Wilkes Climate Launch Prize to the organization Build up Nepal. Build up Nepal has developed a new approach to building homes for very low-income Nepalese using bricks that are not made by burning coal, but instead are compressed, and made with locally available …

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29: How Are Plant Ecosystems Adapting to the Shifting Climate? 44:18

7M ago44:18

44:18

When it comes to climate change, one big question is how are ecosystems adapting to shifting weather patterns, heavier precipitation events, and hotter temperatures for longer periods of time? Are some plants better equipped to withstand these changes than others? And if yes, then why and how? Jacob Levine is a Wilkes Center Postdoctoral scholar he…

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28: Conversation with the Water Resources Hackathon 1st Place Team "SmartFLOW" 21:15

7M ago21:15

21:15

The Wilkes Center recently hosted its 3rd annual climate solutions hackathon at the end of January. This year the focus was water resources. The “hackathon” as we’ve come to call it – borrowing the term from the computer coding world – is an intense problem-solving competition where we challenge U of U undergraduate and graduate students from any d…

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27: Could Low-dimensional Perovskites Advance Cleaner Refrigerants and Batteries? 28:30

8M ago28:30

28:30

Perovskites are crystal structures that can be manufactured in labs for making solar panels. They are relatively cost-effective, and efficient, and could provide a reliable thin-film alternative to the more common silicon-based solar panels. However, perovskite solar cells face a few challenges that must be addressed before they can become a compet…

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26: Sizing Up the Melting Glaciers of the Himalayas 29:26

10M ago29:26

29:26

There are an estimated 54,000 glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayas. These glaciers cover 60,000 square kilometers and serve as a major source of the water in the region’s rivers, including as much as 40 percent in the Indus River system - the backbone of agriculture and food production in Pakistan, for example. But in recent decades glaciologists –…

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25: Climate Sherlocking: Turning Up Clues from Past Global Warming Events 33:46

10M ago33:46

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It’s true the Earth has experienced periods of global warming in its past. The largest such warming event in the past 90 million years - since the time dinosaurs roamed Earth - was the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, about 56 million years ago. Average global temperatures increased by 4–5°C over a period of 3,000–10,000 years. Human beings were d…

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24: Climate Anxiety Prevalence at the U 35:57

11M ago35:57

35:57

"Eco-anxiety" or "Climate grief" are increasingly part of our lexicon when it comes to describing the heavy feelings of concern people are feeling about the state of our natural environment and global climate change. This past year, Jennifer Follstad Shah, associate professor in the School of the Environment, Society and Sustainability, along with …

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23: Monitoring Forests as they Change 32:20

11M ago32:20

32:20

Dr. Jon Wang, an Assistant Professor in the School of Biological Sciences here at the U, manages the Dynamic Carbon and Ecosystems Lab, or DYCE Lab. He has access to high-resolution airborne laser scanning data to map forests across the world to measure to set benchmarks for that data and monitor for changes. Wang is interested in how climate chang…

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22: Interview with Applied Carbon – the 2024 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize Winner 38:36

1y ago38:36

38:36

In September this year, the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy awarded Applied Carbon, the climate tech company based in Houston, Texas, the $500,000 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize. Applied Carbon, formerly Climate Robotics, is a technology company designing automated biochar production machines that convert in-field agricultural crop waste …

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21: Coexisting with Wildlife in a Changing Climate 27:29

1+ y ago27:29

27:29

Austin Green is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biology with the College of Science’s Science Research Initiative, or SRI program. His specialty is using camera traps to monitor and capture image data of wildlife in wilderness areas. His research involves gathering this data to study wild animal behavior, their movement patterns, and…

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20: Mapping the Infestation of Balsam Woolly Adelgid in Utah Forests 28:12

1+ y ago28:12

28:12

If you’ve taken a hike or a drive through northern Utah’s forests recently, you may have noticed that some areas of the forests are changing and looking a little sick. Northern Utah’s forests are increasingly experiencing an infestation of a tiny non-native insect called balsam woolly adelgid (or BWA), that’s slowly attacking subalpine fir which ar…

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19: The Significance of Ancient Roman Concrete for a Decarbonizing World 26:32

1+ y ago26:32

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For this episode we talk with Dr. Marie Jackson a Research Professor in the Geology & Geophysics department here at the University of Utah. Dr. Jackson’s work is centered in mineralogy, pyroclastic volcanism, and material science, but she applies her work to the realms of engineering, archeology, and more. She’s done a lot of pioneering work on und…

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18: How Great Salt Lake Bird Migrations Are Changing 27:00

1+ y ago27:00

27:00

Zoe Exelbert studies birds at the Great Salt Lake. Specifically, she’s interested in how climate change and shifting weather patterns are affecting bird migrations and in turn, how this is impacting the overall ecosystem of Great Salt Lake. Exelbert is a Data Science and environmental studies undergraduate student here at the U. She says understand…

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17: How NHMU's Climate of Hope Exhibit is Improving Climate Communication Strategies 35:48

1+ y ago35:48

35:48

The new Climate of Hope exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Utah offers museum visitors a more localized and solutions-oriented framing of climate change than other exhibits have done in past years. In this episode, exhibit developer Lisa Thompson and Lynne Zummo, the curator of Learning Sciences at NHMU, take us through the interactive exhibi…

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16: Urban Plants + Black Carbon = ? 29:47

1+ y ago29:47

29:47

For this episode we talk with Dr. Alexandra Ponette-Gonzalez, an Associate Professor in the Department of City and Metropolitan Planning and Curator of Urban ecology at the Natural History Museum of Utah. Ponette-Gonzalez’s work focuses primarily on urban ecology. She studies forests and trees and how they interact with the atmosphere and urban env…

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15: Talking with the Wildfire Hackathon Winners 38:56

1+ y ago38:56

38:56

The Wilkes Center held its second annual Climate Solutions Hackathon on January 26th. This was not a coding “hackathon” but a competition to find innovative solutions to the daunting challenges of climate change-driven wildfires. U students were asked to form teams, choose one of five themes to focus their solution, and accomplish this in 24 hours.…

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14: Should A "Contribution" Approach Replace the Struggling Carbon Offsets Market? 32:49

1+ y ago32:49

32:49

Listeners to the podcast are very likely familiar with the concept of carbon offsetting or carbon credits. This is the idea that a company that pollutes in the course of its business practice can purchase carbon credits, often in the form of supporting tree planting somewhere in the world, with a promise that doing this will remove carbon dioxide f…

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13: Can We Bury Modern CO₂ in Utah’s Ancient Sand? 23:00

1+ y ago23:00

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One of the many challenges facing the world in the coming decades to reach carbon neutrality - in order for climate change to stabilize – is the challenge of both capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide that is emitted from power plants and putting it underground. This is what is called Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage. And accomplishing th…

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12: Making Sense of How VOCs Impact Air Pollution and Climate 26:47

1+ y ago26:47

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Understanding how volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that originate from living organisms like trees and plants could influence climate change and air pollution is an important area of research. Recently I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Alfred Mayhew, who is postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences here at the…

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11: The Pitfalls of Adapting Cities for Climate Change 24:16

2y ago24:16

24:16

What does it take for whole cities to take the actions necessary to adapt to a changing climate? What is required for millions of people who live in the same metropolis to agree to certain changes to become resilient to climate change-driven natural disasters? These are the questions that Malcolm Araos has been asking. Malcolm Araos is a Wilkes Cen…

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10: Glaciers and the Past, Present, and Future Climate 15:34

2y ago15:34

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As scientists, policymakers, and other environmentally-concerned individuals search for solutions to the changing climate, glaciers are an important topic. With the ability to both study glaciers in their current states, and use geomorphology and numerical modeling to understand the historical placements of glaciers in the past, they hold clues for…

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09: Harnessing the Power of Methane-eating Methanotrophs 30:38

2y ago30:38

30:38

For the world to meet the goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” by mid-century, scientists say removing greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere will be essential. Dozens of companies have been created and billions of dollars spent already for car…

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08: Investigating Water Scarcity for Climate-Vulnerable Communities Along the US-Mexico Border 26:29

2y ago26:29

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Ricardo Rubio grew up in the borderlands region of southwestern Texas where he came to recognize the challenges and vulnerabilities that communities like his increasingly face because of the compounded effects of water scarcity, political disempowerment, infrastructure scarcity, and climate change. Rubio is a doctoral student in the Department of S…

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07: A Biomimetic Muscle that Makes Energy; 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize Winner Series 23:41

2y ago23:41

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Nicholas Witham, a fifth-year biomedical engineering Ph.D. student at the U, won first place in the Wilkes Student Innovation Prize competition in May 2023 for his proposal titled, "Renewable Energy And Carbon Capture With Thermomotive Biopolymer Textiles." His idea proposes a novel renewable energy system that generates power through the daily hea…

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06: Decarbonizing the Diné; 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize Winner Series 22:29

2y ago22:29

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In continuing our conversations with the winners of the 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize, we spoke with Samantha Eddy and Xiang Huo, whose proposal: “Decarbonize the Diné: A Prefabricated Solar-Driven Communal Solution with Passive Survivability,” won second prize. It aims to turn Dennehotso, a Navajo chapter in Arizona, into a pilot project fo…

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01: Dust in the Wind: Dr. Kevin Perry on Investigating Dust from the Great Salt Lake 15:17

2y ago15:17

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Dr. Kevin Perry has been studying air quality for over 20 years. Perry has monitored plumes from the World Trade Center collapse, smoke from pyrotechnic firework displays, and more recently he has been studying dust blowing off Great Salt Lake. He has deployed equipment to monitor ambient air from the ground, from ships, from the sky, and from high…

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02: Smoke Signals: Why Kai Wilmot Studies Wildfire Smoke Plumes 16:57

2y ago16:57

16:57

Kai Wilmot, a post-doc in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah, studies what smoke plumes do to the atmosphere and how this can inform and improve air quality forecasting. He's currently pursuing development of a five-day smoke forecast for the Western U.S. using trajectory modeling, physics based wildfire plume rise for…

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03: Rethinking Soil; 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize Winners Series 15:32

2y ago15:32

15:32

Steven Tran and Rabiul Hassan, PhD students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Utah took home the third place prize for the 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize in May. Their proposal to help solve the issue of global climate change is a new organic carbon monitoring system for the soil.…

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04: Four Lessons Ben Santer Learned as a World-leading Climate Scientist 28:24

2y ago28:24

28:24

Ben Santer was an early contributor to the historic 1995 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change when a group of leading climate scientists first declared that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”. Santer was a lead author of a key chapter of that report – chapter 8 – which ⁠Santer spoke about recentl…

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05: Increase UTA ridership, decrease carbon emissions; 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize Winner Series 11:48

2y ago11:48

11:48

In continuation with the ⁠2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize⁠ winner interviews, Audri Dara, an undergraduate student in Material Science Engineer and Philosophy at the U, details her proposal on how increased student use of public transportation could help lower carbon emissions at the University of Utah.…

The Wilkes Center For Climate Science And Policy Podcasts

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Talking Climate

The Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy

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30: How Cheaper, Safer, and Cleaner Bricks Could Revolutionize Homebuilding Across Asia 35:29

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29: How Are Plant Ecosystems Adapting to the Shifting Climate? 44:18

1
28: Conversation with the Water Resources Hackathon 1st Place Team "SmartFLOW" 21:15

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27: Could Low-dimensional Perovskites Advance Cleaner Refrigerants and Batteries? 28:30

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26: Sizing Up the Melting Glaciers of the Himalayas 29:26

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25: Climate Sherlocking: Turning Up Clues from Past Global Warming Events 33:46

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24: Climate Anxiety Prevalence at the U 35:57

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23: Monitoring Forests as they Change 32:20

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22: Interview with Applied Carbon – the 2024 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize Winner 38:36

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21: Coexisting with Wildlife in a Changing Climate 27:29

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20: Mapping the Infestation of Balsam Woolly Adelgid in Utah Forests 28:12

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19: The Significance of Ancient Roman Concrete for a Decarbonizing World 26:32

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18: How Great Salt Lake Bird Migrations Are Changing 27:00

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17: How NHMU's Climate of Hope Exhibit is Improving Climate Communication Strategies 35:48

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16: Urban Plants + Black Carbon = ? 29:47

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15: Talking with the Wildfire Hackathon Winners 38:56

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14: Should A "Contribution" Approach Replace the Struggling Carbon Offsets Market? 32:49

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13: Can We Bury Modern CO₂ in Utah’s Ancient Sand? 23:00

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12: Making Sense of How VOCs Impact Air Pollution and Climate 26:47

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11: The Pitfalls of Adapting Cities for Climate Change 24:16

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10: Glaciers and the Past, Present, and Future Climate 15:34

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09: Harnessing the Power of Methane-eating Methanotrophs 30:38

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08: Investigating Water Scarcity for Climate-Vulnerable Communities Along the US-Mexico Border 26:29

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07: A Biomimetic Muscle that Makes Energy; 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize Winner Series 23:41

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06: Decarbonizing the Diné; 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize Winner Series 22:29

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01: Dust in the Wind: Dr. Kevin Perry on Investigating Dust from the Great Salt Lake 15:17

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02: Smoke Signals: Why Kai Wilmot Studies Wildfire Smoke Plumes 16:57

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03: Rethinking Soil; 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize Winners Series 15:32

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04: Four Lessons Ben Santer Learned as a World-leading Climate Scientist 28:24

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05: Increase UTA ridership, decrease carbon emissions; 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize Winner Series 11:48