Earth Day special: How to save the planet (again)

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2026

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this special Earth Day episode of Science Quickly, host Rachel Feltman turns to three environmental experts for a healthy dose of climate hope. Climate scientist Kate Marvel, atmospheric chemist Susan Solomon and environmentalist Bill McKibben share stories about times in the past when humanity encountered grave environmental threats and succeeded in overcoming them. From beating the London smog to healing the ozone layer to rapidly scaling up renewable energy—these stories offer hope and lessons for saving the planet Recommended Reading: Articles by Kate Marvel for Scientific American Kate Marvel’s personal website Susan Solomon Group: Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again. Susan Solomon. University of Chicago Press, 2024 Here Comes The Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization. Bill McKibben. W. W. Norton, 2025 Third Act Initiative, a nonprofit organization founded by Bill McKibben to encourage people older than age 60 to take part in climate action E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Instagram teen accounts with automatic protections on who can contact teenagers and the content they can see.
0:06.0	Instagram teen accounts have contact limits on by default, so teenagers get messages from people they know, not strangers,
0:14.0	and default content settings.
0:17.0	Plus, teenagers under 16 can't change these default settings without parental approval.
0:22.8	So parents can help teenagers connect safely.
0:26.5	Learn more at Instagram.com slash teen accounts.
0:31.6	Have you ever wondered what's the best glass shape to drink beer out of?
0:35.4	And why do elevators always seem to be going the opposite direction
0:38.0	when you need them the most? And how are you supposed to cut pizza fairly if the toppings are all in
0:42.5	different places? These questions and many more can be answered with math. Hi, I'm Andrea Garleski,
0:48.8	I'm in charge of all newsletters here at Scientific American. We have a new weekly newsletter called
0:53.1	Proof Positive.
0:55.2	It's about the math that can help you answer questions
0:56.6	like these
0:57.2	and many other mysteries of life.
0:59.3	Plus, it rounds up the latest math news
1:00.9	and has a puzzle to challenge your mind.
1:03.0	Go to scientificamerican.com
1:04.4	slash newsletters to sign up.
1:20.4	Music For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.
1:28.9	And today, in honor of Earth Day, we're going to talk about why you should actually be excited about our planet's future. Yeah, really.
1:38.7	At Scientific American, we're very aware that most folks don't need a calendar reminder to make them think about issues like pollution and climate change. You probably read or listen to news stories about the environment
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Scientific American, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Scientific American and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.