"BEST POLICY PODCAST, Remarkable, Fascinating, well-produced." listener review
With host Dr. Vivian Thomson. Listeners are from all 50 US states and 79 countries. Available on the usual podcast platforms.
With help from others, podcast host Dr. Vivian Thomson analyzed in Season 1 why some environmental problems have been solved and others have not. She applied these policy lessons to climate change.
In Season 2 Dr. Thomson and her guests examined how power, freedom, and environmental problems are intertwined and what that means for COVID-1
With help from others, podcast host Dr. Vivian Thomson analyzed in Season 1 why some environmental problems have been solved and others have not. She applied these policy lessons to climate change.
In Season 2 Dr. Thomson and her guests examined how power, freedom, and environmental problems are intertwined and what that means for COVID-19's emergence and spread.
Season 3's over-arching theme is place and the environment.
Season 4 is about protecting public health and the environment during challenging economic times.
Season 5 focuses on the 2024 elections around the world.
Each season provides insights and contributions from citizen activists, ecologists, political scientists, infectious disease experts, lawyers, public health researchers, anthropologists, economists, energy experts, and policy practitioners.
Audio clip from the film Waste Land used by permission from Almega Projects Ltd. Excerpt of Ubi Caritas, as sung by Vox Clamantis, used by permission.
Background and theme music recorded by Vivian Thomson (piano), James C. Thomson (violin, viola, and harpsichord), Ken Landis, (organ), and Fred Hyde (harpsichord), and composed by Anonymous (Oh Shenandoah, arr. Keith Jarrett), Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg (Somewhere Over the Rainbow, arr. Keith Jarrett), J. S. Bach (Violin sonatas in e minor and G major, Prelude and Fugue XXII in b flat minor), William Bolcom (Graceful Ghost), Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley (Pure Imagination), Hoagy Carmichael (I Get Along Without You Very Well, arr. Claus Ogerman), François Couperin (Les Barricades Mistérieuses), Duke Ellington (Things Ain't What They Used to Be, arr. Keith Jarrett), Percy Grainger (Irish Tune, My Robin is to the Greenwood Gone, Shepherd's Hey), Edvard Grieg (Little Bird, Volksweise), Dave Grusin (Ray's Blues), Georg Frideric Handel (Sonata in D Major), Scott Joplin (Solace), Jerome Kern (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes), Joseph Kosma and Johnny Mercer (Autumn Leaves), and Maurice Ravel (Pavane pour une Infante Défunte), Antonio Vivaldi (Sonata in d minor)
The Meaning of Green is an independent production of Cedar Closet Studios, Silver Spring, Maryland.
Professor Thomson taught environmental policy for 20 years at the University of Virginia, from 1997 to 2017. She retired early so she could devote herself to speaking out in public about environmental issues, which have been her life's work. Her academic background is in ecology and political science.
Professor Thomson taught environmental policy for 20 years at the University of Virginia, from 1997 to 2017. She retired early so she could devote herself to speaking out in public about environmental issues, which have been her life's work. Her academic background is in ecology and political science.
Dr. Thomson offers policy insider scoops from her work as an air pollution official at the state and national levels. She has published articles, editorials, and three books, on garbage transport, climate change politics, and how power is wielded in the air pollution policy arena. In 2018 she and a U. Va. student team published research on who might suffer the most from the Trump Administration's air pollution rollbacks.
For botany buffs: the striking tree above is a 70-year-old fig tree (Ficus drupacea var. pubescens (Roth)) that was one of the first plants landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx added to his incredible tropical preserve in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Season 1
Acid rain
Leaded gasoline
Environmental justice
Trash
Endangered species
Renewable energy
Climate change
Partisanship
Social movements
Nuclear power
Dams in the US and Brazil
The Panama Canal
Season 2
Fine particle pollution and COVID-19
White privilege
Community trust
Denmark and the coronavirus
Power's many disguises
Why GDP fails to measure we
Season 1
Acid rain
Leaded gasoline
Environmental justice
Trash
Endangered species
Renewable energy
Climate change
Partisanship
Social movements
Nuclear power
Dams in the US and Brazil
The Panama Canal
Season 2
Fine particle pollution and COVID-19
White privilege
Community trust
Denmark and the coronavirus
Power's many disguises
Why GDP fails to measure well-being
Affluence, pollution, and water use
Biodiversity and virus spillover
Bats
Agriculture
Wildfires
Citizen power
Party polarization in the US
Season 3
Coal dust pollution in Appalachia and in coastal Virginia
The Amazon forest and flying rivers
Carbon taxes
The Panama Canal
Ukraine's Carpathian Mountains
Biodiversity and community based management
Germany's energy transition
Intergenerational climate justice
Garbage and race in Brazil
Circular economy thinking in Italy and Maine
Garbage transport in Virginia
Elephants and colonialism in Kenya
Season 4
The US's 2022 climate law
Does economic growth make us better off?
A butterfly's effect on climate politics
The shotgun marriage between the states and the US government
The most polluted city on Earth
The Brazilian Amazon, up close and personal
Forests in Austria
The Taj Mahal
Smoky skies in summer 2023
Scotland leaves coal behind
Net zero
Leaf blowers and environmental justice
Season 5
Elections and the environment: connections or lack thereof
Carbon inequality
Greens in Europe and Tasmania
Tricky Dick's Oval Office tapes
Bhopal
Chernobyl and Fukushima
Panama's massive demonstrations
EU Parliament elections
UK voters choose more climate progress
These graphs are from the United Nations' latest synthesis report on climate change, which was published in 2014. The next report is due in 2022.
This curve is from the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA), at climate.gov.
This curve shows the anomalous, sharp spike in temperatures that started in the early 20th century.
This National Climate Assessment curve shows that, without human influence on greenhouse gas levels, temperatures might have cooled slightly in the late 20th century.