Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast

ellie@persephonica.com

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Is It Over? A Direct Answer to Climate Despair

July 02, 2026

Is it already too late? If you follow the climate crisis closely, despair is a reasonable and rational response to what you're looking at.This week, we’re being led by you. We gathered the messages you've been sending and let them set the agenda. They're heavy ones, and we wanted to stay with them rather than rush past. Is there still hope, or is it over? If this civilisation ends, won't nature simply restore itself without us? How do you keep going when the grief feels total?None of them hav...

London Cooking: A Climate Action Week, a Resigning PM, and the Future of Climate Diplomacy

June 25, 2026

London Climate Action Week doesn't usually have to compete with extreme weather. But this year, the case for climate action was abundantly clear: a red heat warning, schools shut, trains cancelled, and temperatures breaking the UK's all-time June record. A prime minister's resignation on the opening day only added to the sense that events we’d once considered rare now seem to be happening all the time.This week, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson report from LCAW 2026, ...

From SpaceX to City Streets: Who Pays for the AI Data Centre Boom?

June 18, 2026

SpaceX's $1.75 trillion IPO has just created the world's first trillionaire. But for families in Morgan County, Georgia and Boxtown in South Memphis, the AI investment rush seems to look rather different: brown water, diesel fumes, and higher bills.This week, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson take on the data centre boom - now one of the fastest-moving forces in the global energy system. Why exactly do so many of these buildings need to be situated so close to population centres? And why d...