Jonathan Foley: 2025 Schneider Award Winner

Climate One

News, Social Sciences, News Commentary, Science, Earth Sciences

4.7 • 583 Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Project Drawdown is the world’s leading science-based guide to climate solutions. According to Jonathan Foley, Project Drawdown’s Executive Director, they aim to be the Consumer Reports for climate change. “We synthesize every paper ever written in science, engineering, technical, economic literature, all the data, and bring it together and say, ‘Hey, does this actually work? And if so, how much would it cost? And how long would we have to wait for it?’” Foley is not just an expert on the intricacies of hundreds of potential climate solutions; he’s also the winner of the 2025 Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Science Communication, and an expert at explaining complex ideas in easily digestible terms. As he said on a past Climate One episode, “The great news about addressing climate change is we also build a better world in the process. Imagine going to the doctor and they're like, ‘Wow, you're really sick and I'm gonna give you this medicine, and its side effects are, you're gonna feel better.’ Climate solutions are like that.” Episode Guests: Jonathan Foley, Executive Director, Project Drawdown Eliza Nemser, Executive Director, Climate Changemakers Highlights: 00:00 Intro 02:11 Jonathan Foley on Stephen Schneider 06:33 Jonathan Foley on balancing science and communication 13:09 Jonathan Foley on Project Drawdown 20:08 Jonathan Foley on less effective climate solutions 23:27 Jonathan Foley on the food industries effect on climate 26:22 Jonathan Foley on being attacked for speaking out about beef 34:20 Jonathan Foley on the need to stop doing “stupid” stuff 40:31 Greg Dalton on meeting Stephen Schneider 41:25 Greg Dalton on creating the Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Science Communication 45:52 Greg Dalton on Stephen Schneider’s legacy 47:14 Eliza Nemser on her journey to climate activism 49:12 Eliza Nemser on effective volunteerism 53:23 Eliza Nemser on finding your place in climate action Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on Patreon, you’ll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. Sign up today. Ad sales by Multitude. Contact them for ad inquiries at multitude.productions/ads Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is your latest idea.
0:02.0	It's unique, it's game-changing, it's huge!
0:06.0	But you can go even bigger with AI-powered PDF spaces in Acrobat Studio,
0:12.0	turning your files and links into actionable insights and content,
0:16.0	plus share projects and collaborate seamlessly while keeping everything private and secure.
0:21.6	So your excellent idea stays yours.
0:25.6	Do that with Acrobat. Learn more and try it out on Adobe.com.
0:29.6	Hear that? It's your big McDonald's hunger calling.
0:32.6	Because the Big Arch is back and this time it's here to stay with juicy beef cheddar cheese and that big arch sauce
0:39.6	hungry you are now
0:41.3	order delivery on the McDonald's app
0:43.2	serve from 11 a.m.
0:46.3	Upcharges and fees apply to delivery orders
0:47.8	subjects availability, price and participation may vary.
0:50.8	I'm Mariana Brocious.
0:52.2	I'm Kushanavadar.
0:53.5	And this is Climate 1. So I'm Arianna Brocious. I'm Kushanavadar. And this is Climate 1.
0:56.8	So I'm excited about today's show, Ariana.
0:59.3	Every year in Climate 1, we grant the Stephen H. Schneider Award for outstanding climate science communication to one scientist who's doing great work in, yeah, you probably guessed it, communication.
1:11.7	Specifically of the climate kind.
1:13.1	And this year's winner is Jonathan Foley, the executive director of Project Drawdown.
1:17.7	And if you're asking, what's Project Drawdown?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

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