NovaQuant-Looking for innovative climate solutions? Check out these 8 podcasts

The NovaQuantNPR Network is dedicating an entire week to stories and conversations about the search for climate solutions. This week of stories isn't just about covering the climate — it's meant to highlight innovators around the world who are dedicated to finding solutions, and to remind people that they can always do something about climate change. Add these podcast episodes about climate solutions to your listening rotation!

Visit the Climate Solutions Week podcast collection on the NPR app on Android and on NPR One on iOS for even more recommended episodes.

The podcast episode descriptions below are from podcast webpages and have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Sea Change

As climate change causes worsening storms and sea level rise, it's not just people's homes and businesses that are at risk of vanishing, but also the places that hold our past. What does it mean to keep local history alive when a place itself is disappearing?

In this episode of Sea Change from WWNO and WRKF, travel Louisiana's coast to meet people working to prevent histories from being lost. Listen now.

Short Wave

In pockets across the U.S., communities are struggling with polluted air, often in neighborhoods where working-class people and people of color live. Residents often know the air is polluted, but they don't always have the data to address it.

In this episode, NPR's Short Wave reports on how a new NASA satellite could empower one Maryland neighborhood where residents have been fighting for clean air for decades.

Bay Curious

California is aiming to be powered 100% by clean energy by 2045. But there's still a long way to go. With hundreds of miles of coastline, could the state turn to the ocean as a potential source of power? KQED's Bay Curious examines past and present attempts to harness the power of waves and whether this technology may finally be about to crest.

Listen now.

Parched

What if people living in drought-stricken Colorado River states could get more water, instead of just living with less? The idea of pulling water from another river, like the Mississippi, has tantalized people in the Southwest for decades.

Colorado Public Radio's Parched investigates what it would take to make the concept a reality. Start listening.

Seeking a Scientist

In 2021, Texas and wide swaths of North America were shut down by Winter Storm Uri, which caused massive blackouts and left millions of people without power for days. The storms underscored the pressing need for a more reliable energy system. Is a recent breakthrough in nuclear fusion a possible path forward?

Hear more from KCUR's Seeking a Scientist.

Outside/In

Textiles account for up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In this episode, NHPR's Outside/In compares the carbon footprints of polyester and cotton and explores the most effective ways to make sustainable clothing choices.

Listen now.

Death, Sex & Money

How do you prevent climate anxiety from becoming unbearable? WNYC Studios' Death, Sex & Money hears coping strategies from an author and researcher who in her own period of debilitating climate dread grappled with whether to have a child.

Start listening.

Below the Waterlines

After the devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey, Houston Public Media's Below the Waterlines explores how "green infrastructure" — from floating wetlands to an abandoned golf course-turned-nature preserve — could create more flood-resilient cities.

Start listening.