Regenerative cattle grazing gained momentum as a way to make beef production more climate-friendly. But on the ground, the actual results get complicated.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet. And break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

On Possibly, we talk a lot about how cutting beef out of your diet is one of the easiest ways to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions.

But, we’ve also heard about this thing called regenerative cattle grazing that claims to make eating beef more sustainable. Is that true?

We’ve got Nat Hardy and Leo Nachamie to walk us through the answer.

Nat Hardy: Hey Megan!

Leo Nachamie: Hi!

Megan Hall: Remind me—why is beef such a big climate problem?

Nat Hardy: For one, cows burp out methane, which is a really powerful greenhouse gas.

Leo Nachamie: And because of how much beef we eat, there are a lot of cows on this planet. Their bodies take up more physical space than any other mammal on earth—including humans.

Megan: That’s… a lot of burps.

Nat Hardy Yeah… And if you add in the land and fossil fuels used to grow their food, you get a massive impact on our climate, just from cows.

Leo: Every pound of beef creates roughly the same amount of CO2 as driving a gas-powered car for about 100 miles.

Megan: Yikes. So is there any way to cut down on those emissions?

Leo Nachamie: That’s what some advocates of regenerative grazing have been hoping.

Megan: Okay, so what exactly is regenerative grazing?

Leo Nachamie: The idea is to raise cattle in a way that has a lower impact on the environment.

Megan: And how do you do that?

Nat: One way is to mimic the way wild animals feed on America’s grasslands. Like Bison.

Dan Kane: Think of a pre-colonial bison herd moving across the landscape, right? Huge numbers, they’ll come through, graze really hard for a short period of time, and then migrate on, and they won’t return for the rest of the year.

Leo Nachamie: That’s Dan Kane. He’s a soil scientist at Mad Agriculture, which is a non-profit that helps farmers and ranchers transition to regenerative practices.

Nat Hardy: He says that most traditional cattle operations will let their herd loose onto a big swath of land, and kind of just let them munch away.

Leo Nachamie: Which means the grasses can’t catch a break—they get eaten and trampled over constantly.

Nat Hardy: It’s the opposite of what bison do: eat a lot, but don’t return for a year.

Leo Nachamie: With regenerative grazing, ranchers try to mimic the bison by dividing their land into smaller segments, and moving their herd every day or so.

Megan Hall: And that gives the grass a chance to fully recover and grow back?

Leo Nachamie: Exactly.

Nat Hardy: And here’s the crux of it: Some farmers claim that this approach can actually put more carbon into the soil than it takes out.

Megan: Woah. How would that work?

Nat Hardy: We needed some help figuring that out. So we talked to our show’s founder, professor Stephen Porder. He says:

Stephen Porder: The idea there is that, if the animals graze in a way that promotes a lot of plant growth and the plant growth is healthy and has a lot of roots and is robust, that that might actually start to pull some carbon out of the air and store it in the soil.

Leo Nachamie: Plants capture carbon dioxide from the air. When those plants die, most of that goes back to the atmosphere. But some carbon dioxide gets stuck in the soil.

Nat Hardy: So if we can figure out how to get more of that carbon into the soil, by letting the grass grow back, we could lower the carbon hoofprint of beef.

Megan Hall: Okay, that makes sense! So… climate problem solved?

Leo Nachamie: Unfortunately, not quite.

Nat Hardy: Both Stephen and Dan, the soil scientist, have spent their careers knee-deep in the latest research around regenerative grazing. And both of them say the data is just not there. At least not yet. Here’s Dan:

Dan Kane: We’ve got like a set of papers that say, okay. Hey, this looks promising. But when we then shift over to the small number of experiments, where people really tried to kind of control for all these things and really try and are a nice experimental setup, the evidence just is kind of weak.

Leo Nachamie: Basically, we’re a long way from knowing that changing grazing practices has any effect on soil carbon.

Megan: So what’s the takeaway here?

Leo Nachamie: Regenerative grazing can have all sorts of benefits – it can help slow soil erosion, and support more biodiverse grasslands.

Nat Hardy: But when it comes to the carbon question, we shouldn’t count on it to really help with climate change.

Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Nat and Leo!

That’s it for today. Special thanks to Cameron Leo, who did the reporting for this episode.

For more information, or to ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, go at ask possibly dot org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on social media at “ask possibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Ocean State Media, and WBRU.

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This week on Possibly we’re taking a look at the ships that carry our goods around the world. What would it look like to take fossil fuels out of the equation?

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

If you live near a large port, you’ve probably seen cargo ships—they’re these massive boats that

carry everything from cars to bananas, all over the world.

Right now, these ships all run on fossil fuel. We wanted to know – is there a cleaner way to transport our stuff around the world?

We had Sedi-Anne Blachford and Samantha Zhang from our Possibly team look into this.

 Sedi-Anne Blachford: Hi, Megan!

Samantha Zhang: Hello!

Megan Hall: So, is there a cleaner way to run these massive ships?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Well, to be fair,  moving things around by cargo ships is already way more efficient than using airplanes or trucks.

Samantha Zhang: But still, we ship so much stuff around the world that these cargo ships do create a lot of carbon pollution— somewhere around 3% of all of our emissions.

Megan Hall: So, what can we do to reduce that pollution?

 Sedi-Anne Blachford: The shipping industry has been looking into all sorts of solutions, from fueling the ships with hydrogen or ammonia to even using nuclear power.

Stephen Porder: I teach about this stuff, and even from my lectures in the fall, I’m having to replace all my slides for my lectures in early March, because the technology is changing. It’s a whirlwind.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: That’s Stephen Porder. Professor of Environment and Society at Brown University.

Stephen Porder: But I’m also the co-founder of Possibly.

Samantha Zhang: And Stephen says the latest innovation is using batteries!

Megan Hall: Batteries to run a cargo ship? How is that possible? You must need some pretty giant batteries.

 Sedi-Anne Blachford: Yeah, they are big! In fact, a lot of them are the size of shipping containers.

Samantha Zhang: But that’s actually pretty convenient. Batteries used for electricity storage for the grid already come in shipping containers, and of course:

Stephen Porder: Ports are made to lift those big, heavy shipping containers in and out really quickly.

Megan Hall: So instead of having to plug in and wait to charge the ship, like I do with my car, they could just put in a whole new battery?

 Sedi-Anne Blachford: Exactly. No long wait to recharge.

Stephen Porder: They just swap out the batteries and they’re ready to go again.

Megan Hall: So, you put a massive battery on a cargo ship, and that’s enough to get it across the ocean?

Samantha Zhang: Right now, the ships that are using these batteries can only travel about 620 miles, but the technology is improving all the time.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: China is testing its first all electric cargo ship, a 10,000 ton vessel, near Shanghai this spring.

Samantha Zhang: Plus, with fuel prices the way they are these days, switching to electricity might start to make the most economic sense for companies that ship goods across the ocean.

 Sedi-Anne Blachford: And there’s one more twist to this story…

Stephen Porder: Over 40% of what we’re shipping around the world is fossil fuels.

Samantha Zhang: Which means that if we switch to clean energy to power the rest of our economy, we’ll reduce the need for shipping altogether.

Megan Hall: And shipping less stuff means less carbon pollution?

 Sedi-Anne Blachford: You got it. It turns out reducing emissions in the shipping industry is pretty interconnected with reducing emissions everywhere else.

Samantha Zhang: And for Stephen, that’s an exciting connection.

Stephen Porder: It’s those kinds of synergies that I think really give people like me optimism for a better, more efficient and less polluting world without sacrifice. Like we don’t need to ship fossil fuels around if we’re not using them.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: That being said, completely electrifying cargo ships isn’t going to be easy. It will probably take 10 or even 20 years.

Stephen Porder: We’re very much on the learning curve. We’ve been running ships off oil for well over a century. We’ve been running anything off these kinds of batteries for like, a couple of years.

Samantha Zhang: But Stephen says, five years ago, nobody was talking about electric ships and now they’re here, and so who knows what five years will bring.

Megan Hall: Got it! Thanks Samantha and Sedi-Anne.

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Ocean State Media and WBRU.

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Possibly co-founder Stephen Porder has been on a home energy efficiency journey. We check in to see how his latest addition, new windows, are impacting the energy efficiency and comfort of the home.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Today we’re getting an update on the home energy efficiency journey of Possibly’s co-founder Stephen Porder.

We had reporter Sedi-Anne Blachford take a field trip to Stephen’s house to check it out.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Hi Megan!

Megan Hall: Hi Sedi-Anne! So, Stephen has spent years trying to make his home more energy efficient.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: That’s right!

Stephen Porder: We’ve actually been before on Possibly to talk about heat pumps, to talk about electric cars, talk about lots of things, but today we’re here to talk about windows.

Megan Hall: Can you tell me a little bit about what makes Stephen’s windows so interesting?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Sure Megan. Well first of all, they don’t look or sound like most of the windows you see around New England. Instead of two sections that slide past each other.

Stephen Porder: This is a window that looks more like a door.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: And rather than opening with a

[Sliding window sound]

Sedi-Anne Blachford: It’s more of a

[Opening window sound]

Stephen Porder: So that’s opening like a door. If you turn the handle all the way up, it actually turns toward you. And that’s really nice for venting.

Megan Hall: Ok, why does that matter? Does the way a window open really affect how good it is at keeping out the cold?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: It does actually! Because the tilt-turn windows in Stephen’s house don’t have a break in the middle, they’re much more air- and water-tight than traditional sliding windows. But it’s not just the shape of the window that’s different, it’s also the window itself.

Stephen Porder: It’s actually three panes of glass, but it looks like one.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Those three panes of glass have special coatings and are separated by thin gaps filled with argon or krypton gas.

Megan Hall: Argon and Krypton? What do those do?

Sedi- Anne: They basically act as an extra layer of insulation. Kind of like one of those double walled glass mugs you might have seen, except Argon and Krypton do an even better job of stopping heat transfer than air.

Megan Hall: So, Stephen got new windows to keep heat from getting out of his house?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Well, not exactly. When Stephen retrofitted his house to be more energy efficient he purposely didn’t get new windows installed.

Stephen Porder: Everyone always told me that windows don’t really pay for themselves in energy savings. They’re not that big a deal. Like it’s the last thing you should do. So I followed that advice, and it’s not bad advice.

Megan Hall: Is that true?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: In Stephen’s case, it definitely could be. It might take a long time for the money saved from these extra-efficient windows to be more than the cost of installing them. 

Megan Hall: Alright, so then why the swap?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Well as Stephen puts it,

Stephen Porder: I have a colleague at Brown who’s a real expert on building efficiency, and I was telling him about the windows, and he said, Yeah, new windows aren’t strictly necessary from an energy perspective in most cases, but they sure are nice to have. I kind of feel like that’s how I feel.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: He makes a good point. There are all sorts of testing and certification standards for how well windows perform from an energy standpoint. But, at the end of the day, Stephen and his wife were just getting sick of their old windows.

Stephen Porder: Finally when the fifth window broke and the ice was forming on the inside of the window, we were like, You know what? We just we’re going to do it for comfort. We’re not going to do it for energy savings. Probably it’s not going to pay for itself. But, like, you live in your house a lot, and it’s important and nice to have a comfortable house.

Megan Hall: So it really sounds like for Stephen, this decision was as much about basic comfort as anything else.

Sedi-Anne Blachford: Definitely. And the thing is, just because comfort is a harder thing to measure than cost or efficiency doesn’t mean it’s not important!

Megan Hall: I can totally agree with that! So what should I do first if I want to make my home more comfortable?

Sedi-Anne Blachford: A good first step is figuring out what changes might make the biggest difference.  You can start by getting an energy evaluation of your home. You can hire a professional energy assessor, or go to the department of energy’s website to find instructions for a DIY home energy assessment.

Megan Hall: That sounds like a good plan. Thanks, Sedi-Anne!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Ocean State Media and WBRU.

The post Should you replace your windows for energy efficiency? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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Our planet is getting hotter, but at the same time, snow storms seem to be getting bigger. In the wake of Rhode Island’s record setting blizzard, we’re looking back at a 2022 episode of Possibly that explains what’s going on.

This episode is a rerun. It originally aired on January 24th, 2022.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Today we’re answering a question about the weather. How has climate change affected our winters? And what kind of weather can we expect in the future? Kolya Shields and Ashley Junger from our Possibly team looked into this question. Welcome, Kolya and Ashley!

Kolya Shields: Hey, Megan!

Ashley Junger: Hi, Megan!

Megan Hall: So, Kolya, let’s start with some background— here in the Northeast, what were our winters like 50 years ago?

Kolya Shields: To find out, we spoke with Harvey Leonard, a chief meteorologist on Boston Channel 5. He’s actually been forecasting the weather for more than 50 years.

Harvey Leonard: There would be times where some snow or ice, you know, maybe on the side streets by the curbs in the woods, could be on the ground to some extent from early December into March.

Megan Hall: How does that compare to the weather he sees today?

Ashley Junger: Well, Harvey says winters are getting a lot shorter.

Harvey Leonard: The frequency of a long, hard continuous winter is already less and probably will continue to be less going forward.

Megan Hall: Are our winters shorter because of climate change?

Kolya Shields: Yes. A 2021 study reported that the number of days that feel like summer is increasing because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere released by human activity.

Ashley Junger: Scientists predict that by 2050, every US state, except for Alaska, will see fewer days with temperatures below freezing each year.

Megan Hall: But if that’s true, how do you explain some of those big snowstorms we’ve gotten over the past few years?

Kolya Shields: Yeah, I was curious about that too. I mean, the majority of New York City’s biggest snowstorms have happened in the past two decades.

Ashley Junger: To understand why, we spoke to another experienced meteorologist, TJ Del Santo, who has worked for Rhode Island channel 12 for 24 years.

TJ Del Santo: Since 1904, winters have gotten about three degrees warmer, 3.1 degrees warmer.

Kolya Shields: And this warmer weather can actually cause more snow because if air is warmer it can hold more moisture.

TJ Del Santo: 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming can hold 7% more water. So the warmer it gets, the more water is available in the atmosphere for a storm.

Megan Hall: So, we can expect even more snow?

Kolya Shields: In the short term yes, but as the weather gets warmer, more and more precipitation will fall as rain, not snow.

TJ Del Santo: We’re still warming, eventually, it’s probably going to get too warm for it to snow with regularity here in southern New England.

Megan Hall: So, no more sledding in New England?

Kolya Shields: More than that- less snow will impact seasonal businesses, shift growing seasons for farmers, and change which plants and animals can thrive here . Harvey says climate change will be particularly bad for the ski industry.

Harvey Leonard: I’ve seen these tropical incursions of air, it’s gonna wipe out a snow cover, it’s just going to eat it up, number one, and  then if you abruptly get cold, you have ice. And that’s the worst thing for ski areas.

Megan Hall: That sounds bad. Is there anything we can do to prevent this from happening?

Ashley Junger: To avoid the really extreme weather, and prevent our snow from disappearing for good, we’ve got to address the things that contribute to climate change.

Kolya Shields: So, doing the stuff we talk about on this podcast all the time- invest in renewable energy, transition to electric cars, and heat our buildings with electricity not natural gas or oil.

Megan Hall: Got it. Thanks, Kolya and Ashley!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and Ocean State Media.

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Last month the Department of the Interior stopped construction on a Rhode Island wind farm that was 80% complete. This week on Possibly we break down what the order means clean energy, jobs, and your utility bill.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

In August an order from the Department of the Interior stopped construction on a wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that was already 80% done.

So this week on Possibly, we had Nat Hardy and Emma Mejia from our Possibly Team break down what this decision means for everyday Rhode Islanders.

Nat Hardy: Hi, Megan!

Emma Mejia Hello!

Megan Hall: So could you give us a quick refresher, what’s going on with this wind farm?

Nat Hardy: Sure. So the windfarm is called Revolution Wind. It’s a 65 turbine wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island.

Emma Mejia: The turbines should make enough electricity to power around 350,000 homes. And that power will be split between Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Nat Hardy: The project has been under construction since 2023, but it took 9 years before that to get all the permits.

Emma Mejia: They’ve already connected it to the grid, and most of the turbines are already built. The project was expected to open in early 2026, until this order stopped construction.

Nat Hardy: But the latest update in the story is that last week, Ørsted, the company building the wind turbines, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration.

Emma Mejia: That same day, the Attorneys General of Rhode Island and Connecticut also filed a lawsuit against the administration, arguing that the order is against the law.

Megan: So, what happens next?

Nat Hardy: With those lawsuits going on, it’s unclear how or when the situation will get resolved, but for now, the project is on hold.

Megan Hall: Ok, so what does that mean for Rhode islanders?

Emma Mejia: To find out, we talked to Stephen Porder. He’s an environmental scientist at Brown University and our show’s founder.

Nat Hardy: Stephen says Rhode Islanders will feel this the most when they get their utility bills.

Emma Mejia: One of the big benefits of switching to clean energy is more stable prices.

Stephen Porder:  87% of Rhode Island’s electricity comes from natural gas consumption. Natural gas prices go up and down with geopolitical events. They go up and down as this administration pushes to export more natural gas.

Nat Hardy: But with clean energy, where there’s no fuel to burn, the cost is predictable, and most of it is up front.

Stephen Porder: There’s no doubt that in the long run, renewable energy is going to be cheaper. Solar is already cheaper. Wind will get cheaper because you don’t have to pay for anything other than maintenance once you build the thing and plug it in.

Emma Mejia: In fact, even ISO New England, the group that runs the region’s electric grid, said in a statement that the delay “will stifle future investments, increase costs to consumers, and undermine the power grid’s reliability and the region’s economy.”

Nat Hardy: But stopping construction on the project will also affect people’s jobs. Ørsted, hired  more than 1,000 people to work on the wind farm. A joint statement by the presidents of Rhode Island and Connecticut’s AFL-CIO labor unions said that the order has left hundreds of workers unemployed and many more at risk of losing their jobs.

Emma Mejia: But Rhode Island’s efforts to create pollution-free energy will take the biggest hit.

Nat Hardy: Rhode Island legislators committed to having  100% clean electricity in just 8 years 

Emma Mejia: And Revolution Wind was expected to make about 20% of the electricity we need right now.

Megan Hall: Woah, And that’s what, just from like around 30ish turbines?

Nat Hardy: Yeah, just Rhode Island’s share of the wind farm can do that. And that’s the thing – Stephen says it would just take a few more projects like this one, and we could get to 100% clean energy pretty quickly.

Stephen Porder: And that’s just an incredible opportunity for the first time in human history to be free from burning stuff to get our energy. Look, you know, I’m 53 years old. I got, let’s hope, 30 more years. I wanna see the end of that transition. And this decision to shut down Revolution Wind is just standing in the way.

Nat Hardy: To see if we get there, we’ll keep an eye on these lawsuits.

Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Nat and Emma!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

The post What does the stop-work order on Revolution Wind mean for Rhode Islanders? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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Even though wind turbines offer emission-free energy, manufacturing, transporting and installing those turbines does create greenhouse gases. This week on Possibly we do the math and find that turbines deliver emission savings in less than a year.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

My relatives know that I work on a podcast about climate change, so one of them asked me an interesting question. They said — wind turbines might create renewable energy, but don’t you need fossil fuels to make them? Is it really worth it in the end?

To find out, we had Christine Peng and Leo Nachamie look into this question. Welcome, Christine and Leo!

Christine Peng: Hi, Megan!

Leo Nachamie: Hello!

Megan Hall: OK, before we get started, I want to make sure— do wind turbines create greenhouse gas emissions?

Christine Peng: Great question! Let’s back up a bit. The way we get our energy right now, anytime you make something, the act of creating it releases some greenhouse gas emissions.

Megan Hall: Why is that?

Leo Nachamie: Because right now, the energy that we use to get materials and turn those materials into a product usually comes from burning fossil fuels.

Megan Hall: But what about wind turbines in particular?

Christine Peng: They don’t produce emissions when they’re generating electricity.

Leo Nachamie: But building them? That’s a different story.

Stephen Porder: There’s a whole bunch of emissions when you make it and install it again, because you’re using fossil fuels in that process.

Christine Peng: That’s Possibly’s founder, and Brown University’s provost for sustainability, Stephen Porder. He says most of the emissions come from mining and transporting materials and then using them to build the wind turbine.

Stephen Porder: And then you have to take it down and throw it away, or recycle it, or whatever. And there’s some emissions associated with that.

Megan Hall:  So, the emissions aren’t from the turbine running, but from the process of making it, building it, and taking it down?

Leo Nachamie: Exactly.

Megan Hall: Okay, so if building a wind turbine still generates emissions, how do we know whether it’s actually better than coal or gas?

Leo Nachamie: To figure that out, we need to look at the total emissions that are created over the entire life of the wind turbine.

Christine Peng: Then we need to compare those emissions to how much electricity a wind turbine creates over that same amount of time.

Leo Nachamie: Luckily for us, someone already did those calculations.

Stephen Porder: So the National Renewable Energy Lab did a recent estimate, and they said, well, about 20 grams of CO2, maybe 30 per kilowatt hour per unit of electricity produced for a wind turbine.

Megan Hall: Is that a lot? Or a little?

Christine Peng: Right — 20  to 30 grams of Co2 doesn’t mean a lot to most of us. But here’s some perspective–

Stephen Porder: Compare that to a gas fired power plant. That number is closer to 500 compare it to a coal fired power plant, coal fire’s closer to 900, maybe 950.

Christine Peng: So basically, for every unit of electricity, coal can emit up to 45 times more CO₂ than wind.

Megan Hall: Ok, so when you compare the emissions from wind turbines to fossil fuel, it’s not even close!

Leo Nachamie: In fact, on average, it only takes wind turbines 7 months of operating to offset the emissions of their manufacturing, installation, and disposal.

Christine Peng: And in the future, wind turbines could create even less emissions. Right now, we’re using fossil fuels for creating and getting rid of turbines because most of the US’s energy comes from fossil fuels. But that doesn’t have to be the case forever.

Leo Nachamie: Because if we switched to renewable energy to power those steps…

Christine Peng: We could lower those emissions even more.

Leo Nachamie: Stephen puts it this way:

Stephen Porder: If we can put more windmills and solar panels into our electricity production system, then the electricity we use for manufacturing will have lower and lower carbon footprint.

Christine Peng: So yeah, wind turbines aren’t perfect right now—building them takes fossil fuels. But they’re already way more climate friendly than coal or gas, the main fossil fuel sources of electricity.

Leo Nachamie: And here’s the bigger picture: the more wind energy we use to build the next round of clean energy, the closer we get to a system that’s creating even fewer greenhouse gases.

Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Christine and Leo!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

The post What’s the climate impact of building wind turbines? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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If refrigerant, the key substance inside a heat pump leaks into the atmosphere, it can warm the planet thousands of times more than CO2. The Possibly team does the math to see if that risk outweighs the climate benefit of heat pumps.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Heat pumps are a nice option for heating and cooling your house. They run on electricity, and they’re more efficient than other options. But, heat pumps also use a substance that’s not so climate friendly. Is it still worth buying them?

Leo Nachamie and Christine Peng from our Possibly Team are here to explain.

Leo Nachamie: Hey Megan!

Christine Peng: Hi!

Megan Hall: Okay, so we keep hearing a lot about heat pumps, but I don’t have them. Why should I care?

Leo Nachamie: Heat pump technology is actually way more common than you might think. Everyone already has something kind of like a heat pump in their home. It’s your refrigerator.

Christine Peng: And it’s the same technology in air conditioners, too. You can even use heat pumps to heat water!

Megan Hall: Wow, they really are everywhere. So how do they make heat?

Christine Peng: Well, they actually don’t make heat at all! Instead, they just move heat from one place to another, kind of like how a water pump moves water from one place to another.

Leo Nachamie: So in the case of a refrigerator, it’s moving heat from inside the fridge to the outside, and that’s how it stays cold.

Christine Peng: And since heat pumps just move heat around instead of generating it, they use less energy than other options like burning gas or oil.

Megan Hall: Okay, heat pumps seem like a really sustainable choice for heating and cooling your home. What’s the hang up?

Leo Nachamie: Well, to work, heat pumps need both electricity and something else— a refrigerant, which can cause some problems.

Megan Hall: What is a refrigerant exactly?

Leo Nachamie: Basically, it’s just a substance that’s good at absorbing heat, moving it, and then releasing it somewhere else.

Christine Peng: Which is what makes refrigerants so great for the way heat pumps work.

Megan Hall: So, what’s wrong with refrigerants?

Christine Peng: Well, nothing is air tight. Over time, refrigerants can leak out and end up in the atmosphere.

Leo Nachamie: And the refrigerants used in today’s heat pumps trap a lot of heat in our atmosphere. One molecule of refrigerant might trap somewhere between one thousand or two thousand times as much heat as one molecule of CO2.

Christine Peng: So even a little leak can be a big deal, and if more people switch to heat pumps, all those little leaks could add up quick.

Megan Hall: Yikes! Can you put this into perspective for me? If I had heat pumps, what would happen if all of the refrigerant leaks at once? Like, if the canister breaks or something?

Leo Nachamie: This actually happened to our show’s founder, and Brown University’s provost for sustainability, Stephen Porder.

Christine Peng: The tubing that held the refrigerant for his new heat pump water heater was cracked when it arrived.

Stephen Porder: This was a major, major trauma in my house.

Leo Nachamie: For everybody involved.

Stephen Porder: My daughter actually, like age seven, or whenever it happened, she drew a very complicated hot water heater diagram that encapsulated her understanding of the giant problem. It wasn’t really a giant problem, but I was very upset about it for a minute.

Christine Peng: And for good reason, because that’s a lot of emissions.

Stephen Porder: It was probably about a year, or maybe even two years, before the energy savings that I had from running that hot water heater would make up for the emissions of that little cracked tube.

Leo Nachamie: So, in the end, his water heater prevented more emissions than the leak created, but it took a while.

Megan Hall: So, even in the worst case scenario— when all of the refrigerant leaks out of your heat pumps— they still create less greenhouse gas than other heating and cooling options?

Christine Peng: Yes, heat pumps generally last between ten to fifteen years, so that’s plenty of time to cancel out the effects of your refrigerant getting into the atmosphere.

Leo Nachamie: And, there are new refrigerants coming onto the market that don’t trap as much heat if they leak.

Megan Hall: So what’s the bottom line?

Christine Peng: If you’re thinking about switching to a heat pump, go for it! It’s a climate win and can cost less than other heating options.

Leo Nachamie: And, if you really want to nerd out, look for heat pumps with “low global warming potential refrigerants.” These are the new ones that are better for the environment.

Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Leo and Christine!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

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Gas stoves can pollute the air in our homes and even contribute to climate change. But lots of people enjoy cooking on them. Is there a way to switch away from gas that works well and doesn’t break the bank?

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

When it’s dinner time in my house, I fire up the gas stove, just like 38% of Americans. I know that more and more studies are showing that burning that gas inside our homes can hurt our health and the environment – but what can we do about it?

Here to tell us more are Will Malloy and Nat Hardy.

Will Malloy: Hi Megan!

Nat Hardy: Hello!

Megan Hall: So, why are we talking about getting rid of gas stoves?

Will Malloy: There are basically two reasons – the air quality inside our homes, and the impact on the environment.

Nat Hardy: The environmental stuff is pretty straightforward – gas stoves burn, well, natural gas, mostly methane – a powerful greenhouse gas.

Will Malloy: Burning that natural gas is less of the problem here actually – most of the emissions from gas stoves come from when that methane leaks into the atmosphere without being burned.

Nat Hardy: One study found that, between all the households in the US, stoves leak 500,000 cars’ worth of methane into the atmosphere every year.

Megan Hall: Is that a lot?

Will Malloy: It’s not nothing – but there are over 275 million motor vehicles on the road in the US, so cooking with gas isn’t as big of a deal as other things we do – like driving.

Nat Hardy: But if we want to get rid of fossil fuels, we have to wean ourselves off of natural gas completely.

Will Malloy: There’s another reason you might want to switch sooner rather than later, though – your health.

Stephen Porder:  We’re starting to see that indoor air quality is really strongly affected by burning gas in your house, which, if you think about it, is actually not all that surprising.

Nat Hardy: That’s Stephen Porder, our show’s founder and Brown University’s provost for Sustainability.

Will Malloy: And like he said, burning gas inside puts pollutants into the air, like nitric oxides and benzene.

Nat Hardy: These pollutants can hurt us – there’s strong evidence that cooking with gas stoves indoors is associated with children developing asthma.

Will Malloy: There’s also evidence that households that replace their gas stove with an electric one see benefits to their health.

Nat Hardy: A study in Ecuador looked at what happened when the government encouraged people to switch away from gas stoves –

Stephen Porder: What they found is that across Ecuador, for every 1% of people, extra people, who enrolled in the program and switched off of their gas stove, they had a 1% drop in all-cause hospitalization, and a one or 2% drop in the things you typically would associate with bad air quality, like lung problems and heart attacks. So that’s a really direct human health impact.

Megan Hall: Wow! That seems like a big ifference. But ripping out my gas stove and replacing it with an electric one would be pretty expensive, right?

Will Malloy: It would be – but that’s not the only way to switch from gas to electric.

Megan Hall: What do you mean?

Nat Hardy: Here’s how Stephen made the switch-

Stephen Porder: I think my mother in law got me an induction burner because she knew I was like, Mr. Environmental dude, and so we just put it on top of our gas stove. And I think it probably cost about 100 bucks but it cooks amazingly.

Megan Hall: That’s so straightforward.

Nat Hardy: Right? There’s no reason not to switch!

Megan Hall: But, but what if I just like cooking on my gas stove?

Will Malloy: You’re definitely not alone. That’s something that comes up a lot. People don’t want to give up the stove they know and love.

Nat Hardy: But cooking on induction burners can actually be pretty great –

Stephen Porder: It cooks super fast. It boils water super fast, like it’s very controllable. So on this particular induction plate, for example, there were 20 different heat settings that you could use for a pan.

Will Malloy: One study that gave  induction stoves to households in New York found that people ended up really liking them – the investigators offered to switch the stoves back to gas after the study was over, but every single household wanted to keep their new induction stove.

Megan Hall: Okay! I’ll have to check that out. Thanks, Will and Nat!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and The Public’s Radio.

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The news about climate change efforts in the US hasn’t been great lately. So Possibly is launching a new occasional series to highlight advances against climate change around the world. Up first: China

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

The news about climate change efforts in the US hasn’t been great lately. So we’re launching a new occasional series called Good News Abroad.

Megan Hall: Our founder and Brown’s Provost of Sustainability, Steven Porder, is here to help us kick it off with a story from China. Welcome, Stephen.

Stephen Porder: Hey, Megan. We’re in our, in my office, not in China, but. It’s a story about China.

Megan Hall: Yes. There you go. So what is the good news from China?

Stephen Porder: Just to set some context, China is currently the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. The US is second. It was long thought that it was gonna take a very long time before China stopped growing its emissions and started declining them. But we now think that Chinese emissions will peak sometime between now and 2030 and maybe even as early as this year.

Megan Hall: And why is it good news that their emissions are peaking?

Stephen Porder: If you wanna get to zero, which is where we need to be by the middle of the century as a globe, in order to avert the worst consequences of climate change, the first thing you have to do is stop climbing up. Right? And then you have to start going back down.

Megan Hall: So why is it starting to plateau and go down? What is China doing?

Stephen Porder: China installed more solar panels last year than the US has in its entire history, and has about six times as many solar panels s the US does right now. And that disparity is gonna keep growing as they just double down.

Megan Hall: What else are they doing?

Stephen Porder: They’re also rapidly transitioning their vehicle fleet to electric vehicles. So China is the world’s biggest car market. Over half the vehicles they’re selling into that car market right now are electric or hybrid electric. And as a result of that, they don’t need as much gasoline. Right? And so that also is contributing to emissions falling.

Megan Hall: And there’s another thing they’re doing too, right? Something to do with, uh, high speed rail.

Stephen Porder: Yeah. So China has invested massively in high speeded rail in the past two decades. Since the year 2000, they’ve gone from 6,000 to about 25,000 miles of high speed rail.

Megan Hall: So what does this mean for us in the US?

Stephen Porder: Well, I think a lot of people in the US are concerned about climate change and think of us as both a leader in the fight against climate change and also sort of a linchpin for the whole world. And with the change in federal policy and a sort of a very direct series of statements from the President about climate change as a hoax, we’re not gonna fund climate change research. We’re not gonna invest in renewable energy. It feels like that’s going to cascade around the world and just make us give up all hope.

And I’m not here to sugarcoat the fact that the US change on climate change is a severe setback, but it’s also true that we’re not the only country in the world. And it does seem that China is stepping up both diplomatically and technologically and economically as the US sits on the sideline.

So it’s not good news for the US economy necessarily, but because climate change is caused by the emissions from all of us, if someone else can step into the vacuum and help drive emissions down for the rest of the world, that will make a better future for all of us.

It won’t be as good as if the US participates as well, but it isn’t that all hope is lost if the US does nothing. So it’s a glass half full kind of situation in my mind. It’s not all the way full, but it’s half full.

Megan Hall: Great. Well thanks for the half good news, Stephen.

Stephen Porder: You’re fully welcome.

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

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Possibly’s founder and the Provost of sustainability at Brown University Stephen Porder recently visited a supermarket chain in France that sells products other stores would have thrown away.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Here’s an interesting approach to food waste- a supermarket chain in France sells products that other stores would have thrown away. Our founder and the provost for sustainability at Brown University Stephen Porder visited one of those markets during a recent trip to Paris. He’s here to tell us more about it.

Megan Hall: Welcome, Stephen.

Stephen Porder: Hey, Megan, great to be back as always.

Megan Hall: So before we talk about the supermarkets in France, will you quickly just remind us why we care about food waste?

Stephen Porder: There are lots of reasons. But since this show is often about climate change, let’s start there. Food production accounts for about 20% of all of our greenhouse gasses, and of all that food we produce, we throw out about a third of it before it ever gets eaten. So all those greenhouse gasses, as well as all the other effects of agriculture, we’re wasting a third of that.

Megan Hall: Tell me about this food waste supermarket chain.

Stephen Porder: So in French, it’s called Nous Anti-Gaspi, Us Against Waste. And basically what they do is they find food that isn’t going rotten, but that would be thrown out for another reason.

Megan Hall: How did you hear about this place?

Stephen Porder: Actually, it was just down the street from where I was staying. There was a produce market, and then there was this thing called Nous Anti-Gaspi. And looked like they had food there. So I looked into it. So I didn’t hear about it. I just stumbled across it. But it turns out there’s a bunch of them in Paris and around France.

Megan Hall: What is it like shopping there? What kind of stuff do they have on the shelves?

Stephen Porder: It’s basically a fully stocked supermarket.

So I’m walking around Nous Anti-Gaspi. Right now I’m in the cheese section.

It’s France, right? So there’s a lot of wine. There’s a lot of incredible cheeses,

There’s a goat cheese with honey, some seven different kinds of fresh mozzarella.

There’s a lot of produce. And then there’s your staples, olive oil or flour or sugar.

Going back here, we have a whole shelves and shelves of organic eggs,

But even stuff like toothbrushes.

Why toothbrushes would be thrown out? I don’t know. But spices…

And I have to say, like the produce is awesome. I was expecting sort of the half rotten tomatoes, you know, that you would pick through and make sauce out of. But in fact, I couldn’t really tell that there was a difference between the chichi organic produce place next door and this one, in terms of the quality of the produce. It’s just they didn’t have all the things.

Megan Hall: What is wrong with these things that they would have been thrown away?

Stephen Porder: Obviously, when you think of food waste, you’re like, oh, you know, this is past its expiration date or something like that. But when I looked into it, it turns out there’s all kinds of reasons why food gets thrown away.

It was packaged wrong, or there was a typo on the label, or it was delivered too late, and so the vendor had the right to refuse the delivery…

And so all of that is like jettisoned somewhere.

Megan Hall: What lessons could this supermarket teach us here in the US?

Stephen Porder: There are apps and whatnot, and organizations that try to deal with food waste here in the US. And my experience is that there are certain sort of dedicated environmental types who will buy ugly food and go out of their way to to a special a Co-Op, but this very much had the feel of like everybody was there and they weren’t there because they were necessarily environmentalists. They were there because it was cheaper and it was just as convenient. I don’t know. It just really struck a chord with me how regular it felt while doing something that was clearly like it just makes a ton of sense.

Megan Hall: Excellent. Well, Merci Stephen for coming in today.

Stephen Porder:  Je t’en prie

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

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