On this episode I speak with Vandana Singh, speculative fiction author, participle physicist, polymath, and wonderful person. She discusses how she came to see the enormity of the climate crisis, and how it transformed her teaching, writing, scientific practice--and life. We also talk about uncertainty, colonization, wonder, and the beyond human world.

Sometimes things literally go off the charts. Especially with the climate in recent years. In this episode Michael Wehner, recently retired Senior Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, talks about why he and his team decided it was time to change the Saffir-Simpson hurricane rating scale. Instead of category 5 hurricanes should now go to category 6, they argue! Michael also discusses climate modeling, uncertainty, risk, prediction, and the perils of inequality, poverty and life on warming planet.

Professor Sarah Jaquette Ray, Chair of Environmental Studies at Cal Poly, Humboldt knows a lot about climate anxiety and how people handle overwhelm. She is author of The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators and A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet. She has spent a lot of time thinking about working with people struggling to come to terms with our rapidly heating planet.

In this episode visiting cohost neuroscientist, artist, and writer Suparna Choudhury and Swamped host Joshua Moses talk to Sarah about politics, brain science, youth anxiety, authoritarianism, and how to stay sane when it feels like the world just punched you in the gut and when you’re feeling anything but sane.