Episodes
In today’s episode I’m speaking with Joi Lee, the Head of Editorial and an Executive Producer at Earthrise Studio. I’m sure you’ve heard of Earthrise – they’re one of the leading media platforms reporting on climate change, launched in 2020 by Alice Aedy and Jack Harries. Over the past few years, their social media channels have become one of my go-to sources of climate related news – and I know I’m not the only one! So Joi and I spoke about how the climate crisis is being portrayed in the...
Published 04/10/24
In today’s episode I’m speaking with Heïdi Sevestre, an amazing French glaciologist. She called me all the way from Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic ocean, between mainland Norway and the North Pole. 10 years ago, as Heidi was hiking from Chamonix to Zermatt, a mountain guide told her that it is possible to spend your life studying glaciers, and become a glaciologist. So she’s never looked back and has since studied glaciers all around the world, from the French Alps to Greenland, from...
Published 03/27/24
In today’s episode I’m speaking with Bodhi Patil, a United Nations-recognized, award-winning Gen Z ocean climate solutionist dedicated to improving Ocean Health and Human Health. So we spoke about many aspects of his relationship with the ocean, from his early childhood memories diving with his dad to how he helped build Ocean Uprise, an initiative he developed with Parley for the Oceans to help young people learn about the ocean and become advocates for it.
I met Bodhi for the first time at...
Published 03/06/24
In today’s episode I’m speaking with Christabel Reed, the co-founder of two online learning platforms: advaya, and Earthed. A few years ago Christabel and her sister Ruby created advaya, a platform at the intersection of ecology, consciousness and the body, to help people heal their relationships with themselves, each other and the natural living world. They then developed and launched Earthed, a nature skills platform removing the obstacles towards a mass mobilised ecosystem restoration...
Published 02/21/24
In today’s episode I’m speaking with Titouan Bernicot, the founder & CEO of Coral Gardeners. He grew up on a pearl farm in French Polynesia, in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. Whenever I’m on a call with him I’m convinced he’s using one of those fake beach backgrounds but then remember it’s actually a real backdrop. We even got interrupted by dolphins swimming past the Coral Gardeners headquarters while recording this conversation…
Titouan says that coral reefs gave him everything...
Published 01/31/24
In today’s episode I’m speaking with Ellen Miles, guerrilla gardener, activist and author. I found out about guerrilla gardening when I first met her a few months ago - in case you haven’t heard of it yet, it means planting flowers and plants in public spaces in your neighbourhood, both to support biodiversity but also to reclaim those spaces and connect with your local community. I asked her a ton of questions about it so if you’re curious and want to learn more about guerilla gardening,...
Published 01/17/24
In today’s episode I’m speaking with Tom Mustill, a nature filmmaker and the author of ‘How to Speak Whale’. We recorded this a few weeks ago but since then I actually had the chance to travel to COP28, the climate conference, and see Tom and his friend Vahakn perform a whale song bath on the beach, which was absolutely magical. He was in Dubai to help give whales a voice with Whale and Dolphin Conservation, an organisation he’s an ambassador for. Tom is really great at telling the story of...
Published 12/13/23
In today’s episode I’m chatting with Mary Gagen, a Professor of Geography at Swansea University, and the Chief Advisor on Forests at WWF UK.
Forests are our strongest allies in the fight against climate change, and yet we are failing them. They absorb a third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, are home to 80% of the world’s land-based animal and plant species, and provide livelihoods for 1.6 billion people. Yet forests all around the world keep being destroyed despite all the global...
Published 11/22/23
In today’s episode I’m chatting with Joycelyn Longdon, a PhD researcher at Cambridge University and the founder of Climate in Colour, an education platform dedicated to making climate conversations more accessible and diverse for the climate curious.
Joycelyn works at the intersection of technology, ecology, sociology and racial justice. So there was a lot to cover in this episode! She describes bioacoustics and the technologies she works with for her PhD research as ‘Shazam for nature’,...
Published 11/15/23
In today’s episode I’m chatting with Anne-Sophie Roux, a French researcher and ocean activist. Anne-Sophie is the deep sea lead for Europe at Sustainable Ocean Alliance, and in 2022 she started the Look Down campaign against deep sea mining, which encountered massive success. While deep sea mining hasn’t been completely stopped yet, in less than a year the campaign has grown to mobilise over 20 countries behind the cause. So we spoke about why the deep sea is so important and why it’s a...
Published 11/08/23
In today’s episode I’m chatting with Cel Spellman, an actor, radio presenter and WWF ambassador. He’s also the host of the WWF podcast, Call of the Wild, which is one of the first environmental podcasts I started listening to a few years ago. Cel is one of those people who can talk about his love of the natural world for hours, and I felt like this conversation with him would be perfect to open this new season of Why We Care, as we dive deep into why nature is so central to our wellbeing, and...
Published 11/01/23
Biodiversity is the web of life we all depend on – life on Earth in all its forms from pollinators and fungi to entire ecosystems, from rainforests to deserts and oceans. Human activity is destroying nature all around us and over the past few years I’ve come to realise and understand that the reason why we care and feel such deep hurt when we see a forest being cut down or a whale being killed is because nature is where we come from. It’s our home and it’s who we are – and it is so central to...
Published 10/31/23
In today’s episode I’m chatting with Zandi Ndhlovu – an ocean explorer, South Africa’s first Black woman free diving instructor and the founder of the Black Mermaid Foundation. Zandi discovered free diving when she was 28, and fell in love with this beautiful practice and the underwater world. Ever since she’s been using her voice to advocate for more diversity and access in the ocean space and change the narrative that black people don’t belong in the ocean.
Through the Black Mermaid...
Published 06/28/23
In today’s episode I’m chatting with Emy Kane, the managing director of Lonely Whale - a nonprofit organisation working to prevent plastic waste from entering the ocean. She told me how we know more about the universe and space than we do about the depths of the ocean, even though that’s what is sustaining life on Earth. I actually found out recently that more people have been to the moon than have explored the deepest part of the ocean - which is really crazy when you think about it.
Emy...
Published 06/21/23
In today’s episode I’m chatting with Isaias Hernandez, an environmental educator aka Queer Brown Vegan - the social media platform where he helps people understand the climate crisis. Isaias is so good at explaining some of the worlds most pressing issues in a super simple and engaging way - highly recommend following him on Instagram to learn more about sustainability, research, and what he calls ‘evidence-based hope’.
We spoke about the link between the environmental crisis and social...
Published 06/14/23
In today’s episode I’m chatting with Charlie Young – a marine biologist and wildlife presenter also known as Ocean Magpie on social media, where she shares the behind the scenes of her life at sea. Yes you read that well, Charlie lives on a boat!! So we spoke about what her life is like, and how she and her partner renovated their boat in a super sustainable way. I asked her about her most magical wildlife encounter, which she spoke about in such a beautiful and moving way it brought tears to...
Published 06/07/23
In today’s episode I’m chatting with Melati Wijsen, a 22 year old change maker and movement builder. When she was 12 she started a campaign called Bye Bye Plastic Bags with her sister Isabel to tackle the plastic pollution problem in Bali, where they are from. She went on to become a global spokesperson for not only plastic pollution but also the role young people can play in tackling the climate crisis. She spoke on international stages including TED and the UN headquarters in New York and...
Published 05/31/23
In this week’s episode I’m chatting with Dr. Amanda Parkes, the Chief Innovation Officer at PANGAIA and a materials engineering lecturer at Harvard. Amanda is really difficult to introduce in a few sentences as she has experience across such a wide range of sectors, from computer science, mechanical engineering, and biotech, all the way to fashion and material innovation. I met her when I was working on the Impact team at PANGAIA, and one of my favourite memories from that time was the...
Published 04/05/23
In this week’s episode I’m chatting with Nicola Brown, an impact producer and filmmaker specialising in natural history and conservation. Her most recent work, the digital campaign Our Frozen Planet, has been published over the past few months on the BBC Earth channels alongside the release of Frozen Planet ll. The series explores how climate change is impacting communities and species living in the frozen parts of our planet, with the vision to bring people together to drive positive change....
Published 03/22/23
In this week’s episode I’m chatting with Emma Håkansson, an activist, author, and founder of Collective Fashion Justice – an organisation campaigning for a fashion system that upholds total ethics, by prioritising the life and wellbeing of our fellow animals, people and the planet we share. I first heard about Emma through Slay, a documentary on the behind the scenes of the leather industry – you might remember hearing about it in the episode I did with Poppy Mason Watts from WaterBear...
Published 03/08/23
In this week’s episode I’m chatting with Anne Brummer, a wildlife rescuer and CEO of the Save Me Trust. I first heard about her through Dr. Brian May, who you might know as the guitarist of the band Queen. Turns out he is also really interested in animal rights, so much so that in 2009 he joined forces with Anne to set up the Save Me Trust, a nonprofit organisation on a mission to give wild animals a voice.
Anne has been rescuing wildlife for over 30 years and currently runs not only the Save...
Published 02/22/23
In this week’s episode I’m chatting with my friend Jesse Adler, a biomolecular scientist and materials innovation researcher at PANGAIA. Jesse is one of my favourite people - she is one the most enthusiastic, smartest, and overall just wonderful human beings I know. We spoke about materials innovation and what in her view are the most pressing issues in terms of materials that we need to find alternatives for, and about biomimicry and how so much of what we design as humans have been inspired...
Published 02/08/23
In today’s episode, I’m chatting with Poppy Mason-Watts, one of the founding members of WaterBear Network – a streaming platform where you can watch award-winning environmental and social films and documentaries for free. The first time I heard about WaterBear, it was introduced to me as ‘free environmental Netflix’ - which I think is pretty cool!
Poppy and I spoke about the power of storytelling and how WaterBear are bridging the gap between those important stories and clear actions you can...
Published 01/25/23
In today’s episode I’m chatting with Dr. Melanie Joy, a Harvard-educated psychologist specialising in relationships, communication, and social transformation. She’s the author of several books, including the bestselling Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. She’s also the Founding President of Beyond Carnism, an organisation working to expose and transform carnism, the invisible belief system that conditions people to eat certain animals.
Want to dive deeper?
Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs,...
Published 01/11/23