Drilled: The true-crime-style podcast about climate change you need to listen to
The world is on fire. The International Panel on Climate Changes new report indicating inevitable and irreversible changes of our climate, deemed a code red for humanity by UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, makes for frightening and sobering reading, if the news of fires in Greece and California didnt already have you worried. As much as we want to, we shouldnt look away, and understanding the causes of the crisis is key to educating ourselves and others and therefore combating it. Drilled is an excellent true-crime-style podcast about climate change, looking at the dirty deals and sinister corporate interests driving some of the worlds biggest polluters. Investigative journalist Amy Westervelt has hosted the show since 2018, and in the sixth series, she turns to natural gas, often promoted as a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, but riddled with its own pollution issues. The first part of the season looks at the connection between the fracking boom and the plastics boom, analysing the story of Formosa Plastics, a company with an environmental record so bad it couldn't get permits in its own country, so it searched the globe for a new home, with weaker environmental regulations, and found it in the American South". Yikes. READ MORE: * 30 best true crime podcasts from New Zealand and abroad * Edith! Rosamund Pike podcast brings US' unofficial first female president to life * Scriptnotes: A podcast full of fascinating tidbits for any budding writer * West Cork: Audible's true crime podcast deserves praise for treatment of victim * Podcasts to please music aficionados However, if the climate change crisis is getting you down, heres a podcast that offers hope, which is important to cling to while we still have it. Solvable invites the worlds most-innovative and creative thinkers to propose their solutions to some of the worlds most challenging problems, to remind us that many of the things we accept as part of life are, in fact, solvable. The podcast goes big and small, internal and external: the latest episodes look at disordered eating and the experience of hating your body, and how these are physical and psychological issues with tangible causes and attainable solutions. There is, of course, an episode on biodiversity loss and climate change, as well as transportation issues, scamming, global hunger and more. The interviews are hosted by journalists such as Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg, and offer just the kind of spring in your step to believe that a better world and a better life is possible. Award-winning New York Times journalist Erick Galindo hosts this podcast with a fairly simple concept: profiling interesting people about how the pandemic accelerated significant changes, challenges or coming-of-ages in their life. The first season is described as a time capsule of 10 people and how they found light in a year of darkness, focusing on fascinating people and how they overcame challenges in the pandemic (or are still overcoming). The episodes are fittingly titled with some of the greatest existential questions we face in life: How Do I Love Someone? interviews podcast producer Megan Tan about how falling in love in a pandemic broke all the usual rules of dating, Do I Have Imposter Syndrome? features screenwriter Linda Yvette Chavez about battling imposter syndrome, despite being a successful Hollywood creator, while the first episode, What Does it Mean to Be Home? , sees businesswoman Daisy Figuero talk about an experience so many of us had in the first lockdown returning to ones childhood home. Galindo is a brilliant interviewer, adding his own experiences throughout the episodes, making the show a rich, compelling and enlightening listen.