Tash Acres is the founder of Earth Runs, an organistaion that rewards activity by planting trees!
As you will hear, Tash’s approach to running and physical activity is so similar to my approach to sustainability – anything is better than nothing, it all counts, celebrating the successes no matter how small, and so much more!
Now if you're sat there thinking "I’m not into running, this episode isn’t for me", don’t switch off! This episode is for everyone! Tash shared a couple of really startling stats during the episode – apparently inactivity is the 4^th biggest killer of people in the UK, and being active for just 10 minutes a day can reduce your risk of premature death by 10%.
Tash’s definition of ‘activity’ is super broad – anything that gets you moving, just for a bit. Anything that gets you up from the sofa, or your office chair, ideally outdoors, because of all the additional mental health benefits that that brings, but she’s not fussy – she talks about doing just 10 squats last week and how that was better than nothing.
Somewhat unsurprisingly I love Tash’s approach, and I love what she’s doing – there are virtual races and challenges you can get involved in, you can join me in the 1% Club, which plants a tree for every day you’re active (and active can be anything, you absolutely don’t need to be running if you don’t want to!), or you can find plantable medals for your school or community fun run.
Enjoy! 

In this episode we’re talking money, and how we can make our money a bit greener.
I’m chatting to Dan Sherrard-Smith, who is the founder and CEO of MotherTree – a platform that helps us all to get better informed about the impact of our money when it’s in our current accounts, savings, and pensions, and even when it comes to things like mortgages, insurance and broadband too.

We’ve got a few episodes in the archive diving into money, and I’ve linked to them below if you want to go back and have a listen, so I felt like I was pretty on top of all things green money, but I hadn’t even considered things like insurance, and had firmly put ‘mortgage’ into the 'too hard' box! It was a real eye opener to chat to Dan about what they’re doing at MotherTree to help individuals, but also the work that they’re doing with businesses to not only help them to make their business accounts and investments greener, but to help them help their employees too.
Do go and check out the website , there’s so much on there, including a money carbon calculator where you can fill in a few details and get an idea of the carbon impact of your financial choices!

Also, I was listening back to this episode to edit it, and realised that we spent at least the first fifteen minutes talking about talking about climate change, rather than money stuff. I hope you find it as interesting as I did, hearing about how Dan went about setting up MotherTree and the hugely important role that having climacte conversations played in that. As well as all of the juicy money stuff, I would love one of the takeaways from this episode to be us all trying to be a bit braver and have a few more climate conversations – there's a super helpful video here that I use during Carbon Literacy training – let me know if it’s helpful!

This week’s episode starts with a confession!
This episode was recorded a whole year ago, it was edited, intros were put onto it, it was all ready to go, and I somehow failed miserably to hit publish! I genuinely even thought I had published it until I had an e-mail from Heather earlier on this year asking when I thought it might be published. And I'm so glad she did, otherwise this brilliant interview would never have seen the light of day!

I'm chatting to Gavin Fernie-Jones and Heather Davies, founders of Re-Action, a social enterprise with the aim of keeping outdoor kit in action for longer.
We hear about the inspiration behind the organisation, some of the brilliant stuff that they're doing, not only to keep kit in use for longer, but to gently challenge mindsets around consumption, re-use and repair, and to create alternative business models for retail that incorporate the circular economy.

There's so much to take away from this episode, from big picture stuff like how our economy is set up to require us to consume more and more, through to the really practical stuff that we can do to reduce our own impact with regard to keeping our own stuff in use for longer.

Let me know your thoughts!
Are you going to be checking out the Re-Action website to see if there are any collective members near you? Are you an outdoor sports enthusiast who is now going to contact race organisers to ask them what they’re doing to reduce the impact of their event?
Do let me know!

Following on from last week's episode looking into some of the basics of climate science with Dr Adam Levy, this week I'm chatting to another climate scientist, Dr Ella Gilbert, and this time we're diving into the murky world of climate denial!
Here's some of the misinformation that Ella addresses for us, using actual science:

• Climate scientists cherry pick the data and make it all up
• Global temperature stations are now located in next to airports and in built up regions which is why recorded temperatures are hotter
•  How come it felt relatively colder in the UK this summer?
• The wildfires that happened globally over the summer were started by arsonists
• In the 1970's scientists were predicting an ice age
• Climate scientists are part of a global conspiracy
• What about the Roman or Medieval Warm Periods and the Little Ice Age?
• 30 years ago we were told to panic about the hole in the ozone layer - that was all the rage for a season or two, now we're told to panic about global warming
• Temperature records began at the end of the Little Ice Age so of course temperatures have increased
• There are no temperature measurements from thousands of years ago, so you're just making that data up
• More carbon dioxide is better for plants
• What about China? No point us doing anything when China are such big emitters
  

It's only taken 165 episodes, but I decided that it was about time we did a climate change back to basics type episode, going over the basic science of climate change.
Talking about climate change is one of the most important things we can do (check out the brilliant Katharine Hayhoe for a great TED talk around this!) but many of us hold back due to a lack of confidence in our climate knowledge.
So I plucked up the courage to ask one of my very favourite climate communicators, Dr Adam Levy, aka Climate Adam (check out his amazing You Tube channel here) to take us right back to basics, answering questions like ‘what is climate change?’ and ‘what are greenhouse gases?’ amongst others. I’m hugely aware it might be teaching some of you to suck eggs, but I really hope it’s helpful!

GOOD NEWS!
In the new Good News section after the main interview, I share some of the good climate news happening (because there is some, I promise!). Here's this weeks pick:

• A green energy boom in keeping 1.5C in sight
• Manchester 'abuzz' about public transport
  Both of these stories were taken from Positive News - What went right this week - this link has both of the good news stories mentioned if you want to read in more detail!
• Vanessa from the Sustainable(ish) Clubhouse didn't think she'd achieved much, but when she thought about it she had:
  Helped a friend make foraged dried flower decorations for her wedding; lent her car to her sister-in-law to borrow for a week after she changed jobs and had to give back her company car; watched The True Cost movie; and saved some broken solar lights her in-laws were going to put in the general waste and dropped them at the recycling point in B&Q instead. 

After a *slightly* longer (9 months..!) than intended break, the podcast is back!
No guest today - just a short solo episode to say hello, apologise for my absence and let you know to stand by your beds ready for some new episodes with some fabulous guests!

GOOD NEWS!
There's also a new Good News section, sharing some of the good climate news happening (because there is some, I promise!). Here's this weeks pick:

• The state of California in the USA is suing Big Oil
• Reliance on fossil fuels at an all-time low in Europe
• Helen from The Sustainable(ish) Clubhouse persuaded her kid's school to go with a plastic-free and reusable alternative to a balloon arch to welcome pupils back to school for the new academic year. And it looks amazing!