Green Frequency | Environmental Science & Earth Radio

What would happen to coffee and cocoa if humans deliberately tried to cool the planet? Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nina Grant joins Green Frequency to explain stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI, a proposed form of solar geoengineering that would introduce reflective particles into the upper atmosphere.

Drawing on climate and crop modeling for cocoa in Ghana and coffee in Brazil, Nina explains why lowering global temperatures may not be enough. In her modeled scenarios, SAI softened projected losses but did not return either crop to present-day yields. The conversation opens the black box of climate models, explores the importance of rainfall and agricultural management, and reveals how one planetary intervention could produce very different outcomes around the world.

It also confronts the much larger questions surrounding ozone loss, termination shock, climate justice, and governance. SAI would not remove carbon dioxide or replace phasing out fossil fuels. But as scientific and political interest grows, understanding what it could change, whom it might help, and who gets to decide is becoming a public question.

Episode Guest: Dr. Nina Grant
Read Dr. Grant’s dissertation and watch a short video explainer
Review Dr. Grant’s other publication on Google Scholar
Connect with Dr. Grant on LinkedIn or visit Dr. Grant’s website
Learn more about SAI at solargeo.org

Green Frequency Ep. 1: Climate change | Where are we now?

5 episode of Oceanography on marine climate intervention:

mCDR: Can the Ocean Store Our Carbon for Centuries?
Marine Cloud Brightening: Can Brighter Clouds Cool the Planet?
Stratospheric Aerosol Injection: Should We Reflect More Sunlight?
A Natural Experiment in the Sky: Shipping, Clouds, and Climate
Solar Geoengineering: Who Gets to Decide?

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Heat waves are arriving earlier, lasting longer, and reaching further into daily life. So what do we do before the next one arrives? Climate researcher Kartikeya Bhatotia joins Green Frequency to explain what decades of research and experimentation in India can teach a rapidly warming world. Drawing on Critical Perspectives on Extreme Heat in India, he explores why heat is more than a temperature, how housing, labor, gender, health, and access to cooling shape exposure, and why adaptation cannot be reduced to air conditioning or emergency alerts. The conversation moves through India’s pioneering heat action plans, anticipatory finance, passive cooling, parametric insurance, and the idea of a “cool economy.” India emerges not only as a country facing extreme heat, but as a source of adaptation knowledge. These strategies do not replace a fossil fuel phaseout; they show how governments can protect people from the heat already here, before the worst arrives.

Episode Guest: Kartikeya Bhatotia
Read the full report here
Connect with Kartikeya here
Follow Kartikeya’s Substack

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Cover Art by Laurel Wong
Theme music by Nela Ruiz
Find some more Pine Forest Media podcasts below

Listen to Oceanography on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Listen to Plastic Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Listen to South Pole on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Listen to Something in the Water on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

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Mountain gorilla recovery proves change is possible. Gorilla Doctors Chief Communications Officer Amy Bond joins environmental scholar Dr. Elena Berg to examine how long-term conservation succeeds and how people remain engaged when progress is slow and uncertain. Bond explains how Gorilla Doctors provides veterinary care to eastern gorillas in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo while keeping animals with their families in the wild. The conversation connects ecological research, cooperation, communication, and sustained institutional work to the recovery of mountain gorillas, the only great ape whose population is increasing. It also explores climate anxiety, environmental agency, hope, and the emotional discipline required to continue working without guarantees. A conservation story about measurable progress and the work that must continue.

Episode Guests: Amy Bond and Dr. Elena Berg
Discover more about Gorilla Doctors

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Audio Editing by Clark Marchese, Video Editing by Oscar Padula
Videography and Set Design by Le Studio Du Passage
Cover Art by Laurel Wong
Theme music by Nela Ruiz

Find some more Pine Forest Media podcasts below
Listen to Oceanography on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Listen to Plastic Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Listen to South Pole on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Listen to Something in the Water on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
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Some environmental wonders resist the camera. Environmental filmmaker and cinematographer Dr. Isabelle Carbonell takes listeners to Bio Bay in Vieques, Puerto Rico, where dense concentrations of dinoflagellates create brilliant bioluminescence that cameras struggle to capture. That technical failure becomes a question about visibility, wonder, embodiment, and whether an imperfect image can open other ways of knowing nature. Carbonell also situates the bay within Vieques's history of colonial extraction, United States military occupation, contamination, and slow environmental violence. The result is an exploration of environmental filmmaking and visual storytelling that asks what environmental communication loses when it values only spectacular images, and what environmental justice can reveal about the things that remain unseen.

Episode Guest: Dr. Isabelle Carbonell
Discover more of Dr. Carbonell’s work on her website

Explore the Pine Forest Media digital ecosystem on our website
Find the full-length video on YouTube @PineForestPods
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Audio Editing by Clark Marchese, Video Editing by Oscar Padula
Videography and Set Design by Le Studio Du Passage
Cover Art by Laurel Wong
Theme music by Nela Ruiz

Find some more Pine Forest Media podcasts below
Listen to Oceanography on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Listen to Plastic Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Listen to South Pole on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Listen to Something in the Water on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
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Most of Earth's species remain unknown to science. Marine biologist and taxonomist Dr. Manuel Caballero Gutierrez explains how scientists estimate global biodiversity and why humanity may currently know only about 25 percent of the species that exist. He walks through taxonomy as scientific detective work, from deep-sea expeditions and specimen collection to anatomical study, DNA analysis, museum archives, formal naming, and publication. The episode examines biodiversity loss, why the shortage of taxonomists matters, how scientific knowledge can disappear with individual specialists, and why species may go extinct before humanity knows they exist. An expansive introduction to biodiversity, ocean exploration, and the ecological research that conservation depends upon.

Episode Guests: Dr. Manuel Callebar Gutierrez
Browse Dr. Callebar Gutierrez’s publications on Research Gate

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO ON YOUTUBE

Explore the Pine Forest Media digital ecosystem on our website

Find the full-length video on YouTube @PineForestPods
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Audio Editing by Clark Marchese, Video Editing by Oscar Padula
Videography and Set Design by Le Studio Du Passage

Cover Art by Laurel Wong
Theme music by Nela Ruiz
Find some more Pine Forest Media podcasts below

Listen to Oceanography on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Listen to Plastic Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Listen to South Pole on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Listen to Something in the Water on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.