The Climate Divide
Through conversations with residents, researchers and officials, this podcast explores how in D.C. and nationwide, past policies have left many low-income residents and communities of color disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. “The Climate Divide” is a podcast from Hola Cultura supported by Spotlight DC, the Pulitzer Center and the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
This podcast has also been made available to listeners of WAMU 88.5, NPR’s Consider This podcast, and WTOP Radio.
Check out the 1-hour special WAMU 88.5 aired on “The Climate Divide” podcast. In June 2023, this program won Best News Documentary in the large market radio division of the Edward R. Murrow Awards. Read the full announcement.
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Season 4 • Season 3 • Season 2 • Season 1 • Spanish Episodes
Season 4: Today’s decisions; tomorrow’s climate reality
D.C. has big climate goals over the next decades. But there’s no guarantee that the District will actually hit those targets to eliminate fossil fuels from buildings and vehicles or expand D.C.’s shade giving tree canopy. Season 4 of “The Climate Divide” explores what crucial decisions need to be made now by our government to better prepare the District for extreme heat and floods, the DMV’s two biggest climate threats.
Cover art credit: Duane Lempke Photography via Wikimedia Commons
Trailer
The District has made ambitious commitments to expanding tree cover and transitioning away from fossil fuel use. The dates for some of these milestones may seem far away, but how the city plans and builds today will determine if we actually hit those targets. This fourth season of “The Climate Divide” will explore the important choices our government needs to make now to be climate resilient and protect the residents most vulnerable to extreme weather. We will report on this historically hot summer, a controversial gas pipe replacement plan and the challenges faced by trees growing in cities.
Episode 1: New ways to warn about extreme heat, the “silent killer”
With over a month left of summer, D.C. has already surpassed its yearly average of 90-degree days. As climate change causes longer and more intense heat waves, weather alerts are changing to better communicate the dangers of extreme heat to vulnerable populations. In the first episode of season 4, host Marcelo Jauregui-Volpe speaks with Jessica Lee, a public program coordinator at the National Weather Service, about HeatRisk, the agency’s new heat forecasting tool that informs heat-sensitive populations when hot and muggy weather can be dangerous. The episode also features an interview with climate scientist Casey Ivanovich about why she and her colleagues introduced the term “stickiness” to better understand extreme humid heat.
Episode 2: The competing visions of D.C.’s energy future
D.C. utility company Washington Gas wants to continue replacing hundreds of miles worth of underground gas pipes over the next 30 years. Washington Gas says this plan, called PROJECTpipes, will reduce dangerous gas leaks and the methane emissions that sprout from them. But local council members, climate advocates and District agencies have questioned the effectiveness of this project, whose end date is nearly a decade after the city is supposed to be nearly fossil fuel free. This episode will cover recent developments with PROJECTpipes and feature an interview with Tom Holen, a program manager at the London-based think tank InfluenceMap, which studies the advocacy strategies of oil and gas companies such as AltaGas Ltd., a Canadian utility that bought Washington Gas in 2017.
Episode 3: The turning point for the D.C. region’s tree canopy
As trees move to the forefront of planning for climate change, U.S. cities are urgently setting tree canopy goals to make sure residents can continue to benefit from this resource that takes decades to grow. But development and other pressures aren’t making it easy. In this week’s episode, host Marcelo Jauregui-Volpe speaks with members from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, which recently set a tree canopy goal of 50 percent for the D.C. region. The episode will also feature interviews with leading experts who study deforestation and how the pollution and heat in cities uniquely affect tree growth.
Episode 4: What tree equity could mean for the District
Do wealthier neighborhoods have more trees? Recent studies have shown that they do. The nonprofit American Forests is helping people visualize this reality with their Tree Equity Score, an online mapping tool that combines tree cover, race and socioeconomic data in the District and other cities around the country. This season finale features an interview with Alana Tucker, the senior director of the Tree Equity Alliance at American Forests. Tucker speaks with Hola Cultura’s executive director Christine MacDonald about how cities can use the Tree Equity Score, zoning code changes that could help preserve urban forests and how tree preservation doesn’t have to come at the cost of affording housing.
Episode cover art credit: Ted Eytan via Flickr
Production Team
Season 4 of “The Climate Divide” is hosted, produced and edited by Marcelo Jauregui-Volpe. Claudia Peralta Torres is the podcast’s sound engineer. Jaiden Hubbard, Jewel Sanchez and Sbeyde Herrera from the Society & Culture team in Hola Cultura’s Storytelling Program for Experiential Learning provided additional editing support. Christine MacDonald is the series editor and executive director of Hola Cultura.
Season 3: How to Get a Just Transition
In D.C., a combination of grassroots initiatives, city government programs and federal grants are seeking to address pressing climate and health issues and build resilience. Season 3 of “The Climate Divide” explores these solutions to see how they take shape in practice and what impact they will have on residents.
Season 2: Striving Towards Environmental Justice
Season 2 of “The Climate Divide” examines why some neighborhoods have been overburdened by hazards like pollution, extreme heat and flooding and how these disparities came to be. In a time when both the national and D.C. governments are emphasizing environmental justice, this season focuses on the people most affected who’ve voiced their concerns and advocated for greater environmental justice.
Season 1: Heat Disparity in Washington D.C.
Season 1 of “The Climate Divide” explores the correlation between housing discrimination and the lack of green spaces in some D.C. neighborhoods. These densely populated urban blocks can be as much as 20 degrees warmer than historically wealthier and more bucolic wards in the District.
More About Heat Islands
In the summer of 2021, our Storytelling Program for Experiential Learning‘s Environmental Justice Team produced a three-part investigative series on heat islands in D.C. This series was co-published in the Washington City Paper and also received an honorable mention in the 2022 Institute for Nonprofit News awards.
Heat Islands in Washington DC
DC’s Tree Canopy: Neighborhoods with the most and least trees