I'm Dr. Leah Stokes, and I'm Dr. Catherine Wilkinson, and this is a matter of degrees.

Today we're diving into a topic that probably doesn't come up a lot at dinner parties, but it's a super important part of addressing the climate crisis.

Without cutting pollution from this part of the economy, hitting our climate targets is pretty much impossible. Yet it's one of the areas that's been left on the back burner when it comes to decarbonization.

I'm sure our listeners have seen those pie charts that split up pollution by sectors.

You know, you've got transportation, electricity, agriculture, buildings.

But you can't forget that there's a whole big piece of the pie called industry.

That is what this episode is all about the industrial piece of the pollution pie, and most importantly, how we

clean it up.

But what exactly is industry?

This is a big sector that is broad and complicated.

So to help us unpack what's going on, I invited my friend and colleague at UC Santa

Barbara, Dr. Eric Massanette, to come on the show.

He is really one of the world-leading experts on industrial decarbonization.

Thanks, Leah. I am thrilled to be here.

Eric and I are actually doing a research project on this very topic.

We're looking at how to cut pollution from heavy industry and what policies can help us get there.

It's really great to have you on, Eric, and I think we should start from the beginning.

What exactly are we talking about when we say the industrial sector?

The industrial sector covers the processing and production of pretty much all the physical stuff we need in our daily lives.

We're talking about the materials that we literally build our society with, the cement and steel for buildings and bridges.

All the goods we use every day, like cars or computers, and all of the manufacturing of these materials and goods,

is responsible for about a quarter of all direct greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

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