Gabrielle ThompsonAre you wanting to learn more about environmental activism? Well you’ve come to the right place. This is a curated list of the best environmental activism podcasts of 2021.
We have selected these podcasts for a variety of reasons, but they are all well worth a listen. We tried to select a variety of podcasts across the spectrum from hosts with a wide breadth of experience.
Pretty Progressive Editor Recommendation: Wren is a startup that allows you to erase your carbon footprint. You can simply and easily calculate and offset your carbon footprint through a monthly subscription. Learn more or check it out here.
We believe in stopping climate change (hence all the display ads). Be part of a positive movement to change the world and save the environment.
Best Environmental Activism Podcasts 2021
With thanks to ListenNotes, Crunchbase, SemRush and Ahrefs for providing the data to create and rank these podcasts.
The Overstory
- Publisher: Sierra Club
- Total Episodes: 16
The Overstory, a podcast from Sierra Club, brings listeners some of the most surprising, heartfelt, and provocative stories from across the American landscape. With each episode our reporters go beyond the latest news headlines as they profile the people and places on the front lines of environmental activism.
ECO CHIC
- Publisher: Laura E Diez
- Total Episodes: 149
The eco-conscious lifestyle podcast. Each week, Laura Diez is diving into sustainability and practical climate science. This podcast explores fashion, environmental justice, food, conscious consumerism… just about everything in our lives is tied to the environment. Guests include female founders, clean beauty experts, climate scientists, political experts, and many more. Laura is a sustainability professional with her M.S. in Climate Science and Solutions, who happens to also love speaking to other women about environmentally conscious brands, social activism, and balanced, plant-based living. This show aims to feel like hanging out with your cool, smart girlfriends: educational, approachable, and encouraging you to do what works for you. Sustainability is a good look. Email at: laura@lauraediez.com and follow on Instagram @ecochicpodcast
How to save the world
- Publisher: How to Save the World Podcast
- Total Episodes: 104
How to Save the World is a podcast that focuses on sustainability, science and climate change as told through the lens of interviews with experts, long-form investigative episodes and easily digestible Friday News Briefings. We talk about sustainable investing, the science of composting, the history of environmental activism, politics and more! Hosted by Meghan Offtermatt and Jaimie Pruden, we offer both monthly full-length episodes and weekly Friday News Briefings that break down the week’s environmental news, legislation and scientific breakthroughs. Give it a listen, check out our website at www.howtosavetheworldpodcast.com, our Instagram @howtosavetheworldpodcast and let’s keep saving the world! If you like what we do, please support us on Patreon, like our episodes or follow us here, or rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!
To the Heights
- Publisher: Grexly
- Total Episodes: 45
Inspired by Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati’s mantra, “to the heights,” this podcast uses the charism of Frassati’s care for the poor and vulnerable to highlight people who are reaching to the heights in their own lives. Host Olivia R. Colombo takes her background in environmental activism and social justice to introduce listeners to people who are making positive change in the world–– activists, religious, journalists, youth ministers, artists, social workers, and everyone in between.
Zero Hour Talks
- Publisher: Goal 17 Media
- Total Episodes: 11
Zero Hour Talks is the official podcast of Zero Hour – A global, youth-led climate activism movement. The mission of Zero Hour is to center the voices of diverse youth in the conversation around climate and environmental justice. Zero Hour is a youth-led movement creating entry points, training, and resources for new young activists and organizers (and adults who support our vision) wanting to take concrete action around climate change. Together, we are a movement of unstoppable youth organizing to protect our rights and access to the natural resources and a clean, safe, and healthy environment that will ensure a livable future where we not just survive, but flourish. Zero Hour Talks is a production of Goal 17 Media – Storytellers for the common good
Visionary Lifestyle Podcast
- Publisher: Magdalena Freedom Rod
- Total Episodes: 103
The Visionary Lifestyle Podcast is a seasonal weekly Variety Show Featuring: Interviews, Topic Based Episodes, and Q & A shows. I’m your host, Magda Freedom Rod: Health and lifestyle guide, mother, yoga instructor, environmentalist, conscious eating expert, content creator and world traveling digital nomad. On the show you’ll hear interviews with: Inspiring soulutionaries, change makers, thought leaders, social entrepreneurs, activists, conscious media makers, authors, yogis, conscious musicians and more. Topics include: yoga, conscious eating, meditation, Ayurveda, sustainability, alternative health, healing, spirituality, activism, non-toxic living and many more. “My mission is to inspire, educate and empower in order to activate the highest potential of individuals and our collective world in such a way that we create a healthy, thriving humanity and a sustainable planet.” It’s my hope that this podcast will serve as a clarion call to gather the tribe that is interested in being the change we wish to see in the world. I believe that as we become activated into our own highest potential through the use of tools including yoga, conscious eating and meditation, we become empowered to deliver our gifts to the world. The Visionary Lifestyle is about raising consciousness on the planet. We believe in self love, animal love and planet love. Join us. Visit http://www.visionary-lifestyle.com/podcast to learn more, read show notes and submit comments and questions. There is an out of pocket expense for each episode and your support is appreciated. Donations gratefully received at patreon.com/visionarylifestyle Namaste
Live Planted- Practical Vegan Living
- Publisher: Alyssa
- Total Episodes: 172
Live Planted is a weekly Podcast about living a practical vegan lifestyle. Alyssa, the show’s host, is a Midwestern girl who felt the need to create a space based on living a plant based life in the easiest way possible. The show goes into health, wellness, activism, environmentalism, cruelty free practices, sustainability, animal rights, and how to make it all work while living a ‘regular’ life. Live Planted aims to inspire and educate listeners by letting you in on a little secret: I don’t have it all figured out either, but here are some things I’ve learned along the way. During the show I talk with awesome guests, like former Mtv VJ Lauren Toyota, Cara Livermore of Chickpea Magazine, and Hannah Howlett of ‘High Carb Hannah’ Youtube fame. The show has hosted vegan artists, tiny house builders, bakers, professional vegan athletes, plant based recipe creators, movie directors, health coaches, dads, and many more. Part of the show is spent breaking down topics like ‘soy: good or bad?’, ‘the realities of fish’, or ‘how to travel while vegan’. There’ll be ways to go vegan at your own pace, and ways to stay vegan for the long term. Join me in this pursuit to connect with like minded people. You can find the full show notes and more at LivePlanted.com.
The Grindstone
- Publisher: Purdue Department of Philosophy
- Total Episodes: 27
ABOUT THE PODPhilosophy is an important academic subject, one we believe everyone should be exposed to and explore. But philosophy can also feel distant and abstract to many people. The Grindstone is an ‘armchair interviews with philosophers’ podcast that gets to know the people who study and teach philosophy, and tries to apply some of their wisdom to the world around us.We let the conversations unfold in their own way, but we try to cover three topics with all of our guests:the moment that set them on the path to study philosophytheir current area of researchand how that philosophical research can help us better understand some aspect of contemporary culture (e.g., technology; social justice and activism; morality; environmental issues; pop culture, etc.)We also occasionally interview people who majored in philosophy and went on to careers in various industries outside of academia to ask them how their education in philosophy prepared them for and applies to their current work.The conversations are informal, organic, and go where they go. We hope that they are informative and insightful. And we hope that you enjoy them. Thanks for listening!YOU CAN FOLLOW US:@grindstone.pod (Instagram)@GrindstonePod (Twitter)ABOUT OUR TEAMThe Grindstone was created, and is hosted, by Matthew Kroll, the Academic Program Manager in the Department of Philosophy at Purdue University. Caroline Cross, a philosophy major at Purdue, mixes, edits and produces the podcast. The intro and outro music is by Al Terity. Special thanks to Purdue philosophy alum Madison Maroney for voicing the intro and outro.This podcast is supported by the Department of Philosophy and the College of Liberal Arts at Purdue University See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Burning Futures: On Ecologies of Existence
- Publisher: HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Margarita Tsomou, Maximilian Haas
- Total Episodes: 9
Burning Futures: On Ecologies of Existence #Too little, too late A look at the state of our planet gives every reason to worry – and to think. The speed and extent of the environmental disasters looming over us with climate change, species extinction, extreme weather events, pollution and overuse of land, air and water, etc. are unprecedented and as real as they are incomprehensible. The slow violence of these transformations has accelerated to a staccato of events. The series of lectures and discussions at HAU Hebbel am Ufer, “Burning Futures: On Ecologies of Existence”, initiated by Magarita Tsomou (HAU) and curated by Maximilian Haas, looks at the escalating and indeed apocalyptic discourses of the coming catastrophes against the background of ever-growing ecological crises and debates ways and aims of political action. While we can still discuss these issues in a relatively safe and sound environment, in the global South and elsewhere the ecologies of human existence are already being destroyed by rising sea levels, hurricanes, floods, droughts and fires. Yet it is primarily the way of life and production of the industrialized West, based on the destructive exploitation of resources, human and other, that has led to this situation, from which it is still quite well shielded today. The ecological question is therefore closely linked to economies of extractivism, racial capitalism, patriarchal oppression and colonial exploitation, and thus cannot do without critically addressing them. For these reasons, this discussion series is not intended to be an expert debate on ‘nature’, but to take an intersectional perspective on ecological issues and make economic and cultural contexts explicit. “Burning Futures: On Ecologies of Existence” is a lecture and discussion series by HAU Hebbel am Ufer. Supported within the framework of the Alliance of International Production Houses by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. With kind support by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. Initiated by Margarita Tsomou (HAU Hebbel am Ufer) and curated by Maximilian Haas. Podcast Production: Fritz Schlüter. Speaker: Orlando de Boeyken. Jingle: Sonja Deffner
Decolonizing Science
- Publisher: Decolonizing Science
- Total Episodes: 6
Decolonizing Science is a grassroots organization and podcast run entirely by a black woman currently obtaining her PhD in the field of biological sciences. The goal is to bridge the gap between activism and science by educating underprivileged communities and everyday people. The topics Decolonizing Science seeks to shed light on are environmental racism, health disparities and discrimination in the medical and research fields. We need to deconstruct colonial ideologies that have dictated and defined our understanding of science and medicine.
SPHERE – a podcast on the evolution of global environmental governance
- Publisher: Eric Paglia
- Total Episodes: 4
SPHERE is a podcast that investigates the historical evolution of global environmental governance through in-depth discussions with a wide array of scholars, scientists, and practitioners—including politicians, diplomats and other government officials—who have played decisive roles in shaping the course of environmental politics, science and activism over the past half century or more. The podcast provides invaluable insights, expertise and first-person oral histories encompassing the entire post-WWII “Great Acceleration” of rapid economic growth and environmental degradation that gave rise to the environmental awakening of the 1960s and after. SPHERE also covers current conceptual developments such as the Anthropocene and debates on climate change and the global sustainable development goals that will underpin the agenda of the upcoming “Stockholm+50” conference, marking the semi-centennial of the seminal 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment. SPHERE the podcast is an extension of the ERC-funded research project SPHERE—Study of the Planetary Human-Environment Relationship—centered at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.
Keep it Cool
- Publisher: Thora and Miranda
- Total Episodes: 7
We are two high school students dedicated to environmental activism. Our podcast focuses on recourse consumption in a variety of areas and ways to take small steps to reduce our impact. Anybody can make a difference! We also focus on amplifying youth voices in regards to the climate crisis.
Awake with Natalie C Morrison
- Publisher: Natalie C Morrison
- Total Episodes: 15
Natalie C Morrison combines teachings from Buddhism, yoga and contemporary mind, body and breath-based practices with environmental activism in her system of mind-body ecology. Her teachings seek to empower us to enhance our own wellbeing and to inspire radical change towards regenerative living in our world.
FORE Spotlights
- Publisher: Sam Mickey
- Total Episodes: 34
A series of interviews from the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, focusing on people and organizations working at the confluence of religious and ecological perspectives. Interviews cover four main areas: 1) new and forthcoming publications, 2) engagement in practice, activism, and advocacy, 3) teaching and curriculum, and 4) perspectives from environmental humanities. Our Vision is a flourishing Earth community where religious and spiritual traditions join together for the shared wellbeing of ecosystems, life forms, and people on our common planetary home.You can watch the video recordings of this podcast here: https://fore.yale.edu/Resources/Multimedia/Video/FORE-Spotlights-Archive/
Uncut Mangos
- Publisher: Rheanna Borromeo
- Total Episodes: 6
Welcome to the Uncut Mangos a podcast hosted by Rheanna (Rhe) Borromeo! I hope to use this space to have candid chats by myself or with friends about creating art, consuming media, and general thoughts about the intricate world we live in. Each week I discuss a few topics from my wide range of interests from art, design, movies, pop culture, astrology, activism, mental health advocacy, to environmental sustainability. Thank you for tuning in and hope you enjoy! Instagram: @uncutmangospod
Humans for Cause
- Publisher: Coaching for Cause
- Total Episodes: 4
The Humans for Cause podcast is all about taking a deeper look into subjects that we specialize in. From activism to environmentalism, from sustainable living to travel, conservation and social enterprise, from veganism to mindfulness and so much more; we will leave no stone unturned as we talk and chat our way to understanding the world around us so that together we can create solutions and make a positive, productive impact. This podcast has been recorded with our community in mind. This is for you friends. SUBSCRIBE to our Cause! 🌏♻️ A podcast hosted by the Coaching for Cause Team
The Ecothot Podcast
- Publisher: ECOTHOT LLC
- Total Episodes: 9
Earthly Donnie is the host of The Ecothot Podcast. Earthly Donnie is a climate activist in New York striving to encourage sustainable solutions with her eco-blog. Services can be found at www.Ecothot.com or @ecothot on social media platforms. Reach out for collaborations. Topics explored: environmental justice, policy, current news, climate change, environment, urban, clean energy, green new deal, ecothot, earthlydonnie, pujithegreatest, ecopodcast, earth, blackpodcast, youth, climateactivism Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ecothot/support
Save the Planet, Wine Not
- Publisher: Save the Planet, Wine Not
- Total Episodes: 6
Passionate environmentalists Noah Herfort and Timo Marchant combine wine tasting with lively discussions about climate change, the risks it poses to humanity, and the opportunities it presents for a thorough restructuring of society. Confronting the evils of extractivism and market capitalism and appraising the interwoven symptoms of a sick society riddled with systemic inequality, Timo and Noah offer ruthless but fair criticisms of the current status quo. It isn’t all doom and gloom, however: they also present a ray of hope by exploring examples of promising alternatives.
IMPACTivism: Get better at doing good
- Publisher: Logan Sullivan – Advocate, seeker, writer, humanitarian
- Total Episodes: 21
IM·PACT·iv·ism /ˈimˌpaktəˌvizəm/ verb | the intersection of rational compassion and effective action, where we are each incredibly capable of impacting positive change for the people, non-human animals and environmental causes needing it most. The IMPACTivism Podcast explores ideas we can consider, choices we can make, and actions we can take, as individuals, to get better at doing good.
Art of Peace Radio
- Publisher: P. Le Vasseur
- Total Episodes: 8
The ART OF PEACE is a public radio program heard weekly on www.KCSB.org and KCSB 91.9 FM Wednesday evenings from 7-8pm. The Art of Peace focuses on social responsibility, community activism, and personal relationships as they relate to mindfulness and peace consciousness. “Learning to Listen” Philip Le Vasseur Raises Consciousness and Engages the Community with Art of Peace Tuesday, August 24, 2010 By Colin Marshall Phil LeVasseur is interested in many things, but none seem to get him quite as fascinated as what he calls “heart awakenings.” It’s his own term, he explained to me when I sat in with him in the KCSB studio, but one that describes an immediately recognizable phenomenon. “Your heart just speaks to you at a certain point,” he said. Heart awakenings tend to precede one’s major shifts in perspective, and thus one’s major changes in life. LeVasseur’s guests tend to have undergone heart awakenings at some time in their lives. His radio show, Art of Peace, is the product of one of his own. Christopher Lowman had a heart awakening. “Here he was, this East Coast guy, wealthy, educated, but he felt like he wasn’t making a difference,” said LeVasseur. “So he studied these Japanese healing techniques to cure the effects of trauma, then went to Rwanda and started working on the people who had been traumatized by war. He formed this whole group, Moving Towards Peace. Chris isn’t a loud guy; at first, he didn’t want to take a stand. But he was helping.” B. Allan Wallace, a former Buddhist monk and current lecturer on Buddhism and the mind, also had a heart awakening. “Here’s a guy, a PhD, more brilliant than ten of us put together,” as LeVasseur described him, “and he wanted to become a Buddhist monk! He researches what’s called contemplative science—meditation—which teaches people to be still. You listen to him speak, and you can’t help but settle down and be calm. He doesn’t even necessarily talk about Buddhism as a religion now; he likes to compare it to Western psychology.” The initially formidable-sounding General Leopard would seem an even less likely candidate for a heart awakening. Now known as Christian Bethelson, he was once a military general in Liberia, “like the Blood Diamond general,” LeVasseur explained. “He was doing these terrible tings. He was on the verge of killing himself. He was an Liberian presidential bodyguard during the coup, where he was tortured. But he came upon a guy from the Everyday Gandhis. They’re a group that do this thing they call ‘dreaming together’ for days before they decide what they’re going to do or what they need to help the world, and he joined them.” LeVasseur, who has interviewed all three of these people on KCSB, gives the impression of a man who’s made many changes in his own life. Aside from his radio work, he mentioned stints as a sushi chef, an electronics salesman, and much more besides. Employed in a stereo shop in the early 1990s, he discovered he could use their selection of “killer” Nakamichi tape decks to record KCSB’s blues shows, especially Greg Drust’s now-legendary Back at the Chicken Shack. Getting curious as he listened, he simply stopped by the station one day and ran into its general manager. “I was like, ‘Sign me up!’” After learning the ropes, he found himself in a position to sub for some of his favorite KCSB DJs, including Drust himself. (“At some point, he’d moved on to polka, which he knew more about than blues, and he knew more about blues than blues artists do,” LeVasseur said. “I was definitely glad he made a tape in advance for me to play.”) He began his own environmentally-focused public affairs show in 1994, but after three years had to put it on hiatus to make room for everything else in his life, including a growing son and a new full-time job. But current events eventually conspired to draw him back into the broadcasting fold. “The Bush era started, and I just became deeply confused,” he said. “I stopped listening to the radio, I stopped watching TV, and I stopped reading papers for a long stretch. I started joining peace walks. I got to a place where I was ready to say something.” The result was, at its core, the same Art of Peace that airs today. LeVasseur allows his program a wide mandate, but it often returns to a suite of favorite subjects: activism, the environment, events in the community, nuclear disarmament, and religious perspectives from traditions like Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism. He’s spent this summer re-airing interviews from his early years in radio, which even back then covered such now-fashionable topics as design principles for sustainable community. “And now everyone’s talking about this stuff,” he said. “Whoda thunk? The 1969 oil spill was the watershed moment for Santa Barbara, but the community developed afterward. Now we have the Bren School right here at UCSB. Green has become very businesslike.” But whatever the topic of the week, Art of Peace is united by LeVasseur’s relaxed approach. “The best way to learn is not to be the most intelligent or the best reporter,” he said, “but to have a conversation and listen to the stories. I look for people with the courage to step up; my courage is to get their stories. When they’re on the couch here at KCSB, it’s real easy. I try to find what’s alive in them, what’s present in them, and that takes getting out of the way. I like to settle in: I practice tai chi, I swim, I do yoga. Every day is a day to calm my brain down. If I get five minutes of connection with someone, it makes my week—and it probably makes theirs.” LeVasseur seems to believe that this station is the only place he can make it happen: “I’ve traveled all around, and I can tell you that KCSB is unique. Sometimes you have to do your show and you’ll think, ‘Oh, this again.’ But then you come down and experience this culture built over 45 years. Radio’s a basic tool of democracy, like a kiosk on the street. And the other question is, what kind of legacy will you leave behind when you check out? I think the first step toward ending war, poverty, drugs, and gangs is listening, having a conversation, practicing all that. And it does take practice.” 4•1•1 Art of Peace airs Wednesdays from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. on KCSB, 91.9 FM. For details, visit artofpeaceradio.podomatic.com.
