Talking Climate
This podcast features conversations about transformative research in climate science and policy at the University of Utah. It covers topics ranging from climate science advancements to policy discussions. The show aims to highlight innovative work by researchers and policymakers. Listeners can expect insightful interviews and expert analysis.
Episodes
35: Wastewater Treatment Could be a Solution for Cleaner, More Efficient Fertilizer
Episode Intro:A few weeks ago, I recorded an interview with Margaret Lumley who is co-founder and CEO of a small startup called Roca Water. Roca was one of the top runners up for our Wilkes Climate Prize in 2025. They are driving an innovative technology to tackle two different but related problems – that of water pollution and how we currently make fertilizer for growing plants, for agriculture.
34: Climate Change Should Be Funnier. Seriously.
Episode Intro:The topic we’re exploring in this episode is climate change and humor. Can climate change be funny? To explore this question, I had the chance to speak with Sara Yeo, a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah, who researches science communication, along with Julia St. Andre, currently a senior studying science communication. For her honors thesis Julia
33: How Utahns Could Support a Tax on Carbon Emissions
Episode Intro:A couple years ago, a Utah statewide ballot initiative called Clean the Darn Air was proposed to tackle the persistent air pollution which Wasatch Front residents deal with every year. The proposal was to tax the things that cause the pollution -- the carbon emissions – by levying a 10 cents per gallon tax on gasoline purchases and a penny per kilowatt for electricity. From this ta
32: Could Lab-generated Lactoferrin Be Healthier, Cheaper, and Better for the Planet?
Episode Intro:One of the two runners up for the Wilkes Center Climate Launch Prize this past year is De Novo Foodlabs, a startup with operations in North Carolina and Cape Town, South Africa, which is focused on using precision fermentation to synthesize a new kind of lactoferrin. I had to read up on this myself, but Lactoferrin, is a nutrient found exclusively in milk from mammals. It’s in human
31: Deciphering How Methane-Eating Bacteria Thrive
Episode Intro:Ross Chambless: Many believe that chemistry is foundational to understanding and solving environmental challenges. And when it comes to solving a pernicious global environmental problem – such as methane emissions – it may be basic chemistry research that ultimately leads society to innovative breakthroughs.Methane (C𝐻4) is a potent greenhouse gas. It is the main component of natural
30: How Cheaper, Safer, and Cleaner Bricks Could Revolutionize Homebuilding Across Asia
Episode Intro:Ross Chambless: In September 2025, the Wilkes Center awarded its annual Wilkes Climate Launch Prize to the organization Build up Nepal.Build up Nepal has developed a new approach to building homes for very low-income Nepalese using bricks that are not made by burning coal, but instead are compressed, and made with locally available materials, and with minimal cement. The technology i
29: How Are Plant Ecosystems Adapting to the Shifting Climate?
When it comes to climate change, one big question is how are ecosystems adapting to shifting weather patterns, heavier precipitation events, and hotter temperatures for longer periods of time? Are some plants better equipped to withstand these changes than others? And if yes, then why and how? Jacob Levine is a Wilkes Center Postdoctoral scholar here at the University of Utah. He is interested
28: Conversation with the Water Resources Hackathon 1st Place Team "SmartFLOW"
The Wilkes Center recently hosted its 3rd annual climate solutions hackathon at the end of January. This year the focus was water resources. The “hackathon” as we’ve come to call it – borrowing the term from the computer coding world – is an intense problem-solving competition where we challenge U of U undergraduate and graduate students from any discipline to team-up and develop proposals in a s
27: Could Low-dimensional Perovskites Advance Cleaner Refrigerants and Batteries?
Perovskites are crystal structures that can be manufactured in labs for making solar panels. They are relatively cost-effective, and efficient, and could provide a reliable thin-film alternative to the more common silicon-based solar panels. However, perovskite solar cells face a few challenges that must be addressed before they can become a competitive commercial PV technology. In some forms th
26: Sizing Up the Melting Glaciers of the Himalayas
There are an estimated 54,000 glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalayas. These glaciers cover 60,000 square kilometers and serve as a major source of the water in the region’s rivers, including as much as 40 percent in the Indus River system - the backbone of agriculture and food production in Pakistan, for example. But in recent decades glaciologists – those who study glaciers – are concerned with how
25: Climate Sherlocking: Turning Up Clues from Past Global Warming Events
It’s true the Earth has experienced periods of global warming in its past. The largest such warming event in the past 90 million years - since the time dinosaurs roamed Earth - was the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, about 56 million years ago. Average global temperatures increased by 4–5°C over a period of 3,000–10,000 years. Human beings were definitely not walking the Earth back then, but
24: Climate Anxiety Prevalence at the U
"Eco-anxiety" or "Climate grief" are increasingly part of our lexicon when it comes to describing the heavy feelings of concern people are feeling about the state of our natural environment and global climate change. This past year, Jennifer Follstad Shah, associate professor in the School of the Environment, Society and Sustainability, along with her colleague Andrea Brunelle,
23: Monitoring Forests as they Change
Dr. Jon Wang, an Assistant Professor in the School of Biological Sciences here at the U, manages the Dynamic Carbon and Ecosystems Lab, or DYCE Lab. He has access to high-resolution airborne laser scanning data to map forests across the world to measure to set benchmarks for that data and monitor for changes. Wang is interested in how climate change and human activity are rapidly transforming te
22: Interview with Applied Carbon – the 2024 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize Winner
In September this year, the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy awarded Applied Carbon, the climate tech company based in Houston, Texas, the $500,000 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize.Applied Carbon, formerly Climate Robotics, is a technology company designing automated biochar production machines that convert in-field agricultural crop waste into biochar.Jason Aramburu, who is a Co-founder an
21: Coexisting with Wildlife in a Changing Climate
Austin Green is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biology with the College of Science’s Science Research Initiative, or SRI program. His specialty is using camera traps to monitor and capture image data of wildlife in wilderness areas. His research involves gathering this data to study wild animal behavior, their movement patterns, and how human behavior is impacting wildlife. Some o
20: Mapping the Infestation of Balsam Woolly Adelgid in Utah Forests
If you’ve taken a hike or a drive through northern Utah’s forests recently, you may have noticed that some areas of the forests are changing and looking a little sick. Northern Utah’s forests are increasingly experiencing an infestation of a tiny non-native insect called balsam woolly adelgid (or BWA), that’s slowly attacking subalpine fir which are among the most common conifers in the Wasatch M
19: The Significance of Ancient Roman Concrete for a Decarbonizing World
For this episode we talk with Dr. Marie Jackson a Research Professor in the Geology & Geophysics department here at the University of Utah. Dr. Jackson’s work is centered in mineralogy, pyroclastic volcanism, and material science, but she applies her work to the realms of engineering, archeology, and more. She’s done a lot of pioneering work on understanding ancient Roman concrete, their compo
18: How Great Salt Lake Bird Migrations Are Changing
Zoe Exelbert studies birds at the Great Salt Lake. Specifically, she’s interested in how climate change and shifting weather patterns are affecting bird migrations and in turn, how this is impacting the overall ecosystem of Great Salt Lake. Exelbert is a Data Science and environmental studies undergraduate student here at the U. She says understanding the ways these migratory birds are changing t
17: How NHMU's Climate of Hope Exhibit is Improving Climate Communication Strategies
The new Climate of Hope exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Utah offers museum visitors a more localized and solutions-oriented framing of climate change than other exhibits have done in past years. In this episode, exhibit developer Lisa Thompson and Lynne Zummo, the curator of Learning Sciences at NHMU, take us through the interactive exhibit where they are gathering important data that may
16: Urban Plants + Black Carbon = ?
For this episode we talk with Dr. Alexandra Ponette-Gonzalez, an Associate Professor in the Department of City and Metropolitan Planning and Curator of Urban ecology at the Natural History Museum of Utah. Ponette-Gonzalez’s work focuses primarily on urban ecology. She studies forests and trees and how they interact with the atmosphere and urban environments. She’s done a lot of cutting edge rese
15: Talking with the Wildfire Hackathon Winners
The Wilkes Center held its second annual Climate Solutions Hackathon on January 26th. This was not a coding “hackathon” but a competition to find innovative solutions to the daunting challenges of climate change-driven wildfires. U students were asked to form teams, choose one of five themes to focus their solution, and accomplish this in 24 hours. Ultimately, the Wilkes Center received a total
14: Should A "Contribution" Approach Replace the Struggling Carbon Offsets Market?
Listeners to the podcast are very likely familiar with the concept of carbon offsetting or carbon credits. This is the idea that a company that pollutes in the course of its business practice can purchase carbon credits, often in the form of supporting tree planting somewhere in the world, with a promise that doing this will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, to “offset” or balance-out th
13: Can We Bury Modern CO₂ in Utah’s Ancient Sand?
One of the many challenges facing the world in the coming decades to reach carbon neutrality - in order for climate change to stabilize – is the challenge of both capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide that is emitted from power plants and putting it underground. This is what is called Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage. And accomplishing this on a large scale will be necessary all across
12: Making Sense of How VOCs Impact Air Pollution and Climate
Understanding how volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that originate from living organisms like trees and plants could influence climate change and air pollution is an important area of research. Recently I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Alfred Mayhew, who is postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences here at the U. Alfred did his earlier graduate and PHD wor
11: The Pitfalls of Adapting Cities for Climate Change
What does it take for whole cities to take the actions necessary to adapt to a changing climate? What is required for millions of people who live in the same metropolis to agree to certain changes to become resilient to climate change-driven natural disasters? These are the questions that Malcolm Araos has been asking.Malcolm Araos is a Wilkes Center post-doctoral student in the Department of Geog
10: Glaciers and the Past, Present, and Future Climate
As scientists, policymakers, and other environmentally-concerned individuals search for solutions to the changing climate, glaciers are an important topic. With the ability to both study glaciers in their current states, and use geomorphology and numerical modeling to understand the historical placements of glaciers in the past, they hold clues for interpreting the climate.Dr. Leif Anderson has be
09: Harnessing the Power of Methane-eating Methanotrophs
For the world to meet the goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” by mid-century, scientists say removing greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere will be essential. Dozens of companies have been created and billions of dollars spent already for carbon dioxide removal. But another greenhouse gas g
08: Investigating Water Scarcity for Climate-Vulnerable Communities Along the US-Mexico Border
Ricardo Rubio grew up in the borderlands region of southwestern Texas where he came to recognize the challenges and vulnerabilities that communities like his increasingly face because of the compounded effects of water scarcity, political disempowerment, infrastructure scarcity, and climate change. Rubio is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Utah and his researc
07: A Biomimetic Muscle that Makes Energy; 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize Winner Series
Nicholas Witham, a fifth-year biomedical engineering Ph.D. student at the U, won first place in the Wilkes Student Innovation Prize competition in May 2023 for his proposal titled, "Renewable Energy And Carbon Capture With Thermomotive Biopolymer Textiles." His idea proposes a novel renewable energy system that generates power through the daily heating and nightly cooling of the earth,
06: Decarbonizing the Diné; 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize Winner Series
In continuing our conversations with the winners of the 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize, we spoke with Samantha Eddy and Xiang Huo, whose proposal: “Decarbonize the Diné: A Prefabricated Solar-Driven Communal Solution with Passive Survivability,” won second prize. It aims to turn Dennehotso, a Navajo chapter in Arizona, into a pilot project for building a self-sustained and eco-friendly livi
05: Increase UTA ridership, decrease carbon emissions; 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize Winner Series
In continuation with the 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize winner interviews, Audri Dara, an undergraduate student in Material Science Engineer and Philosophy at the U, details her proposal on how increased student use of public transportation could help lower carbon emissions at the University of Utah.
04: Four Lessons Ben Santer Learned as a World-leading Climate Scientist
Ben Santer was an early contributor to the historic 1995 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change when a group of leading climate scientists first declared that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”. Santer was a lead author of a key chapter of that report – chapter 8 – which Santer spoke about recently in a talk given at the University of Utah. San
03: Rethinking Soil; 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize Winners Series
Steven Tran and Rabiul Hassan, PhD students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Utah took home the third place prize for the 2023 Wilkes Student Innovation Prize in May. Their proposal to help solve the issue of global climate change is a new organic carbon monitoring system for the soil.
02: Smoke Signals: Why Kai Wilmot Studies Wildfire Smoke Plumes
Kai Wilmot, a post-doc in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah, studies what smoke plumes do to the atmosphere and how this can inform and improve air quality forecasting. He's currently pursuing development of a five-day smoke forecast for the Western U.S. using trajectory modeling, physics based wildfire plume rise forecasting and satellite based estimation of wi
01: Dust in the Wind: Dr. Kevin Perry on Investigating Dust from the Great Salt Lake
Dr. Kevin Perry has been studying air quality for over 20 years. Perry has monitored plumes from the World Trade Center collapse, smoke from pyrotechnic firework displays, and more recently he has been studying dust blowing off Great Salt Lake. He has deployed equipment to monitor ambient air from the ground, from ships, from the sky, and from high-altitude mountain observatories around the world.
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