Advertise on podcast: How We Survive

This season, we explored large-scale climate interventions that could be our last hope. One intervention in particular, solar geoengineering, made a lot of listeners’ heads spin. (We’re right there with you.) This episode, we answer some of your most pressing questions about solar geoengineering. We get into whether solar sunshades could harm crops, what international efforts around solar geoengineering look like, and what would happen if a powerful country went rogue and put sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. Plus, we look at a solution to some of these more extreme solutions: decarbonizing.

All season, we’ve been unpacking the controversial ways we’re messing with nature to save the planet. In this episode, we explore the wildest intervention to date: de-extinction. We take a tour of Colossal Labs, the $10 billion Dallas startup betting it can reverse-engineer extinction itself, to see how they plan to turn pigeons into dodos and Asian elephants into woolly mammoths. But whether it’s bringing back the woolly mammoth from extinction or shooting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, just because we can mess with nature, does that mean we should? After the tour, host Amy Scott chats with Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental journalist Elizabeth Kolbert to find out.

We can't avoid catastrophic warming without also capturing and storing carbon dioxide — both the carbon we've already emitted and the carbon we continue to emit through industries that are tough to decarbonize, like steel, petrochemicals, and cement. Europe is a leader in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), with a goal of storing at least 50 million tons of captured CO2 a year by the end of this decade. So this episode, we team up with Germany-based reporter Sam Baker from the DW podcast “Living Planet.” We follow carbon dioxide from its source at a cement plant, all the way to its final resting place under the North Sea. And we look beyond the hype to see if Carbon Capture and Storage could be a real climate solution. Or just another way for the fossil fuel industry to keep on drilling.

Across the country, anti-geoengineering bills are being proposed in state legislatures. These bills would ban the intentional release of chemicals into the atmosphere for the purpose of affecting sunlight or weather, and could impact future research into stratospheric aerosol injection — or even cloud seeding. But, unlike environmentalists that are advocating against the potential use of geoengineering as a climate solution, the bills’ proponents think that it’s already happening. Their proof? You can see it in the sky, they say: just look up. In this episode of “How We Survive,” Amy Scott talks with producer Rachel Kahn about how a once-fringe conspiracy theory could impact the future of geoengineering.

Can a technology used for war help prevent an environmental catastrophe in the making? Cloud seeding is a technique where particles, usually silver iodide, gets dispersed into clouds to help generate more rain or snow and it’s been around for 80 years. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. used cloud seeding in a top secret mission called Operation Popeye, to prolong the monsoon season in Vietnam. It’s since been deployed by state governments and private companies to bring more water to arid places. The only problem? It was hard to verify just how well it worked, which meant it was hard to make any money doing it. Until now. We tag along with a team of cloud seeders in Utah as they race to try to save the Great Salt Lake, and build a rainmaking empire.

Talk to enough experts about geoengineering and the conversation eventually turns to termination shock. That’s the idea that if we were to start cooling the planet and then suddenly stop, the resulting “shock” of heat could be catastrophic. It’s also the title of a novel by bestselling sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson, who explores the science, politics, and unintended consequences of trying to engineer the earth’s climate. In this episode, we sit down with Stephenson to talk about what sci-fi can teach us about real-world climate solutions. But first: a climate idea so ambitious it sounds like it came straight from the pages of science fiction.

Could dimming the sun be the key to cooling things down before the climate crisis worsens? Some scientists say yes, that we can cool the Earth by launching tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. It’s a type of solar geoengineering that was once seen as preposterous, meant to exist only in the pages of a sci-fi novel. But now, it’s a reality. To find out for ourselves, we travel to Northern California, where two entrepreneurs are launching sulfur-filled balloons from the top of stacked shipping containers. Later, we talk with scientists on both sides of this issue to find out if solar geoengineering could help prevent catastrophic tipping points or introduce a whole new slew of cascading consequences. Clarification (June 18, 2026): This episode has been updated to more accurately reflect David Keith's relationship to the carbon removal company he founded.

The climate crisis is escalating. We have to decarbonize our economy, but we’re moving too slowly. So, what’s the backup plan? This season of “How We Survive” is about engineering nature: large-scale interventions that could be our last hope. We’ll explore technology being developed that could alter our weather patterns, transform our planet, and possibly save us all from the worst outcomes of the climate crisis. Or lead to catastrophic, unintended consequences. On our hunt for solutions, we tag along with entrepreneurs trying to launch sulfur into the stratosphere, venture to the Utah mountains where there’s a serious endeavor to create more rain and snow, find out how (and why) scientists are trying to resurrect extinct animals. Join us for the new season of “How We Survive,” starting May 27.

Throughout the season, we asked you all what questions you had about food, solutions and climate change, and you did not disappoint! In this episode, we find answers to your most pressing questions, like whether grass-fed beef is more nutritious than grain-fed, if cell-cultivated meat is considered an ultra-processed food, and we find out what’s going on with insect protein (of course, a taste test is involved). Plus some tips for reducing food waste.

The 100th meridian is the longitudinal boundary separating the humid East and the arid West. Researchers say the dry line is moving east because of climate change, threatening some of our cheapest and most reliable crops, like wheat and corn. In this episode, Amy drives across Kansas to talk to farmers on both sides of the dry line to see how they’re adapting to climate change. And we hear from a scientist who’s trying to breed crops that will thrive in a hotter, drier world.

Climate change is transforming how the world grows and eats. In this episode, host Amy Scott talks with New York Times international climate correspondent Somini Sengupta about what she’s learned from farmers adapting to extreme weather. From drought-resistant crops to regenerative practices, Sengupta shows how communities on the front lines of climate change are finding new ways to survive and feed their families — and what their stories can teach us about building a more resilient global food system.

About a third of the greenhouse gases cooking our planet come from our food. Agriculture and livestock production are incredibly taxing on the planet. To curb the impact, we need to drastically reduce the amount of land we use to make food, while at the same time making more food for a growing population. How are we going to do that? In this episode we go fishing with an eccentric rancher in Northern California and hop over to Colorado to get a rare peek into the demonized factory farm industry on our hunt for answers.

If you have ever bitten into a plant-based burger and felt dissatisfied, or even grossed out, you’re not alone. In this episode, we explore the uncanny valley of meat and dive deep into what makes meat so … meaty. Plus, “The Splendid Table” host Francis Lam joins Amy Scott for a taste test of cultivated meat and shares his go-to recipes for climate-friendly proteins.

Climate change is changing what we eat. As the planet heats up, foods like salmon, chocolate and coffee might be harder to come by and more expensive to buy. In this episode, the “How We Survive” team goes on a food tour around Northern California to find out how tech entrepreneurs are finding new ways to make all sorts of foods that are under threat from the impacts of the climate crisis.

Imagine a future where chocolate and coffee are rare and expensive; where cheap, nutritional staples, like corn and wheat, are threatened. The climate crisis is a food and agriculture crisis. A third of global greenhouse gas emissions come from what’s on our plate. Cow burps, deforestation, water use and food waste all feed into making our planet unlivable. And it’s a double-edged sword, because as the planet heats up, staple crops are withering, soil is losing its nutrients, and droughts and famines will become more common. Our food systems are hurting the planet, and the hotter planet is hurting our food systems.  To survive, we need to drastically cut down our use of farmland and we need to find alternative meat sources that don’t give consumers the creeps. How will we keep feeding millions of people? And how will we do that with less land?  This season of “How We Survive,” we’ll take you on a food tour of the future. May we interest you in some lab-grown chocolate or some cell cultivated salmon (that is, if you’re not in Florida)? We explore the uncanny valley of meat and visit farmers in our nation’s breadbasket where hotter, drier, less predictable weather has global consequences. Finally, we’ll take you on the ground into one of the more demonized (and misunderstood) parts of the agricultural system: Factory farms.