Seasons greetings listeners, and what a festive treat Tom and Sam have for you this episode. This week we welcome Lucy Siegle back to the studio, before listening to Brother Spirit and Brother Embrace, Zen Monks from Plum Village, as they impart wisdom on how we can reconnect with nature at this pivotal moment. They tell us stories of leading meditation circles with key negotiators at COP26 and how connecting our heads and hearts can help the climate movement. We also hear from this season's...

Tzeporah Berman started her climate career cooking for activists at a camp protesting anti-felling in British Columbia. A year later she was arrested in the same place, microphone in hand, as one of the movements' leading climate defenders. Since then Tzeporah has become one of Canada's most prominent environmentalists, with a mission to inspire the next generation of activists. Sam and Tom managed to sit down with Tzeporah at COP26 to discuss her career, from negotiating the Great Bear...

It isn't often you meet a General, but this week retired four star US army General Stanley McChrystal shares his wisdom after a lifetime of military service. Sam and Tom sat down to ask hard hitting questions about the military and it's responsibility to the climate movement. Exploring the role the military plays within the climate crisis and how it's focus has shifted as environmental needs have gained attention and urgency, Tom and Sam listen to stories of climate wars of the past and how...

This week Tom and Sam are joined by Shirley Djukurna Krenak, member of the Brazilian Krenak community, and a leading activist for Indigenous voices within the climate movement. Recorded at COP26, Shirley has travelled across the world  to increase awareness of the environmental impacts on small indigenous communities like her own. In 2015, the Krenak people were directly affected by Brazil's worst ever environmental disaster when a dam collapsed, unleashing tonnes of mining waste into their...

Farhana Yamin is one of the most influential environmental lawyers and climate policy experts in Britain. This week she chats to Tom and Sam to talk through the past 30 years in the climate world, from convincing world leaders the climate crisis was real, to presenting the notion of zero emissions and campaigning with Extinction Rebellion. We discuss her time in UN boardrooms making etiquette faux pas, representing small islands against international powers, as well as her emotional...

We're back! Listeners, welcome to Series 2, and boy do we have a series in store for you. This week Tom, Lucy and brand new host Sam are going to transport you to COP26. You've seen it all over the news but what actually goes on at COP? And what was it like to be there? Well, the team have been running around the streets of Glasgow to answer just that. From the blue zone to the green zone and out into the marches, we talk to Belgian bikers, climate lawyers and the children protesting for...

Socials: Lucy Siegle: https://twitter.com/lucysiegle https://www.instagram.com/theseagull Tom Mustill: https://www.instagram.com/tommustill https://twitter.com/tommustill

We have reached the finale of season one! Thank you so much for joining us on the journey so far. To celebrate, Lucy and Tom do something a bit different - they pass the mic to the next generation of nature and climate storytellers, photographers, reporters and filmmakers. We speak to young storytellers in a time of climate change and ecological catastrophe about how they feel, what they hope for and what they need. Starting with the talented and passionate students of Falmouth University,...

We speak to two innovators who have taken unappealing subjects that nobody wants to talk about – sewage and bugs, respectively  - and made them compelling! Hugo Tagholm is the CEO of Surfers Against Sewage, the Cornish NGO that has morphed from single-issue crusty surfers’ organisation into a slick global outfit, responsible for changing the law on toxic waste, sewage treatment and plastic pollution. Driven by his fierce passion for the ocean and environmental justice, Hugo tells us how to...

Guest: Bill McKibben: Author, Educator, Environmentalist & Founder of 350.org For years we have been told that the way we do things is set in stone. That we cannot change the system. But that is not true, and the system is collapsing. New stories are emerging: Green New Deals, Divestment from Fossil Fuels, global political movements like XR and Fridays For Future. We dig into how Stories and storytelling are at the heart of these changes with the man who has been dismantling old stories...

Entertainment shows from broadcasting giants have incredible power to transmit ideas to huge audiences. Research shows that across countries, we pay more attention to TV on climate than we do to any other forms of media. But on the whole, big budget dramas and soaps remain silent. This week Lucy and Tom, (Coronation Street and Neighbours fans respectively) speak to the award-winning British screenwriter, Lisa Holdsworth about when and how TV drama will step up to the biggest story of our...

In the struggle to protect land, water and natural resources Indigenous people have always been on the frontline.  These conflicts effect us all - if the Amazon burns, if oil is drilled in the Arctic, if Indonesian forests are felled, we all face the dire consequences. These conflicts are increasingly violent. Hundreds of indigenous of activists are killed every year. Many more are threatened, imprisoned, attacked and silenced.  Despite their global importance and urgency we rarely hear these...

Can we harness the power of language more effectively to focus minds on nature and climate? That’s what this episode aims to find out. For some reason when discussing the planetary crisis we’ve often found it really difficult to get the language right, both when talking about nature and climate, and when talking about ourselves. In this episode Lucy and Tom zero in on the words we use, and discover how small changes can make a massive difference. We talk to Damian Carrington, Environment...

Ellie Goulding is a self-confessed ‘nature nerd’ who grew up in rural Hereford. She’s also a global star with two #1 albums, two BRIT Awards, over 132 million singles sold, 22 billion streams and 5 billion views on YouTube. She felt it was her duty to speak to her fans about the nature and climate, becoming a UN Environment ambassador. The consequences have not always been straightforward! In this episode of So Hot Right Now we look at the power of fame. How can you stick your head above the...

Reporting on frontline environmental issues is the second most dangerous field of journalism after war reporting, and defending and organising can lead to a person being sued, criminalised, attacked, murdered or disappeared. Defending the living world and atmosphere that supports us all, should everyone’s fight, but much of the brunt is borne by indigenous peoples defending ancestral homelands at the heart of many conflicts. In this episode Lucy and Tom speak with Krystal Two Bulls, an Oglala...

The climate and nature emergency is the story of our lives, so why has it been covered so badly and how are we going to change that? This week’s guest, George Monbiot provides answers and truth bombs. George is renowned for his fearless uncompromising commitment to social and environmental justice, for his column in the Guardian and books such as Heat and Feral. Over 30 years he has battled to get the true story on the state of the environment into the public domain. In this episode he gives...

This episode is about justice; climate justice. In this two-part special Lucy and Tom get to grips with one of the biggest problems with talking about nature and climate - forgetting to include people. The climate and nature crisis isn't fair - many of the people worst effected by climate change and the loss of nature have done the least damage. And for a long time, we didn't talk very much about people at all when we talk about climate. But this is changing and this weeks guests are at the...

After last week’s lesson from Sir David Attenborough, Lucy and Tom continue their mission to deliver more impact in nature and climate reporting. In this episode they catch up with the planet’s most famous climate diplomat, ‘big hitter’, Christiana Figueres. In 2010 Christiana seemed to rescue climate negotiations from the diplomatic trash-can following disastrous global talks, against all the odds marshalling the world towards the global Paris Treaty. Who better to catch up with as we try to...

This episode looks at the work of the world’s premiere nature broadcaster, one of the most trusted voices in the world. We ask Sir David Attenborough what he has learnt, what he would do if he was starting his career now, how we can use wonder to fight for nature and what we need to do immediately. Socials: Lucy Siegle: https://twitter.com/lucysiegle https://www.instagram.com/theseagull Tom Mustill: https://www.instagram.com/tommustill https://twitter.com/tommustill

So Hot Right now is a new podcast on a mission to change the conversation about nature and the climate crisis, launching on the 26th May. To save the world we need to change the story. Nature and the climate are in crisis. To survive we must use our most powerful tool - communication. Telling these stories can be difficult and dangerous. But done right they can change the world. Join environmental journalist Lucy Siegle (The Guardian, The One Show) and wildlife filmmaker Tom Mustill (Greta...