Scene on Radio host/producer John Biewen:
I’ve felt for many years that most of us making media should be shouting more loudly about the climate crisis. It’s the story, the most pressing emergency, of our time. But I hadn’t figured out a way to contribute something fresh to the conversation. We found a way.
In our Season 5 series, The Repair, co-host Amy Westervelt—the award-winning climate journalist and host of the Drilled podcast—and I explore the cultural roots of our current ecological crisis, and the deep changes Western society will need to make to save the Earth and our species.
With help from historians, leading thinkers, activists, and producers in other countries where climate change hit early and hard, we trace the evolution of the colonizing, extractive Western culture that has driven us into the ecological ditch, and we’ll look at potential solutions—the repair.
This season, we’re delighted to have Cheryl Devall on the team as our story editor (see the About page for more on all of us).
The Repair is supported by a grant from the International Women’s Media Foundation.
Original art for Season 5 by Mara Guevarra.
Season 5 Trailer: The Repair
This season will explore the cultural roots of our current ecological emergency, and the deep changes Western society will need to make to save the Earth and our species. Through interviews with historians and other experts, The Repair will trace the evolution of the West’s colonizing, extractive culture, and how we in the rich Global ...
S5 E1: In the Beginning
The climate emergency is here. In the first four episodes of our series, we explore the questions: How did we break so bad? How did we become the kind of society that would unleash so much destruction on our only home, and ultimately on ourselves and our children? And, crucially, who is this we? Our story ...
S5 E2: To the Victor
How Western Europe really broke bad in its understanding of humanity’s place in the natural world, starting in the Middle Ages. Part 2 of The Repair, our series on the climate crisis. By host and producer John Biewen, with co-host Amy Westervelt. Interviews with Charisse Burden-Stelly, Kate Rigby, Enrique Salmón, and David Pecusa. The series editor is ...
S5 E3: “Managing” Nature
If the Enlightenment was so great, why was it not a course correction? Did newer cultural values that took hold in the West in this period speed up our race toward ecological suicide? Part 3 of The Repair, our series on the climate crisis. By this season’s co-host, Amy Westervelt, with host and producer John Biewen. ...
S5 E4: Up to Heaven and Down to Hell
Why has the United States played such an outsized role in the creation of the climate crisis? As a settler nation, the U.S. emerged from the colonizing, capitalist West, but what did America and its cultural peculiarities bring to the party? Part 4 of The Repair, our series on the climate emergency. Researched and written by ...
S5 E5: Jakarta, the Sinking Capital
Southeast Asia is especially vulnerable to storms, rising oceans, and other climate effects—though countries in the region did very little to create the crisis. How does the climate emergency look and feel in Indonesia, and how are people there trying to adapt? Part 5 of The Repair, our series on the climate emergency. Reported by Nita ...
Bonus: Manchin on the Hill, and Introducing Drilled
Co-hosts John Biewen and Amy Westervelt discuss the U.S. Congress’s effort to pass its first major climate bill ever, and Senator Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) move to block the bill, seemingly on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. And an episode of Drilled, Amy Westervelt’s true crime podcast about the climate crisis. The series editor is Cheryl ...
S5 E6: “We Don’t Have the Power to Fight It”
Earth’s changing climate is already displacing millions of people, worsening tension and conflict, and sometimes violence—for example, between farmers and traditional nomadic herders in Nigeria. Part 6 of The Repair, our series on the climate emergency. Reported by Ugochi Anyaka-Oluigbo, with reporting and production assistance from Nchetachi Chukwuaja and Tim Cuttings Agber. The series story editor ...
S5 E7: Deluges and Dreams
The climate crisis is not new to Bangladesh. For decades, global warming has exacerbated storms and flooding and turned many thousands of people into refugees in their own country. Yet, even though Bangladeshis did almost nothing to create the crisis, some are trying to be part of the solution. Reported by Tareq Ahmed, with recording and ...
S5 E8: Last Orders
Among the wealthy, industrialized Western countries that created the climate crisis, Scotland is one of the leaders in pivoting away from fossil fuels—or promising to. Just how quickly will Scots be willing to cut off the flow—of oil, and money? Part 8 of The Repair, our series on the climate emergency. Reported and written by Victoria ...
S5 E9: Pachamama
In several countries around the world, including Ecuador, New Zealand, and the U.S., some people are trying to protect the planet using a legal concept called “rights of nature”—infusing the law with Indigenous understandings of Mother Earth. Part 9 of The Repair, our series on the climate emergency. Reported by Amy Westervelt and Polyglot Barbershop. Script ...
S5 E10: The Power Structure, Not the Energy Source
The first of two concluding episodes in Season 5, in which we focus on solutions. In Part 10 of The Repair, we look at the actions and policies that people need to push for —now — to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. Reported by Amy Westervelt. Script editor, Cheryl Devall. Production and mix ...
S5 E11: Change Everything
In our Season 5 finale: What’s the cultural transformation we need to make—in the West, and the U.S. in particular—to live in good health with the rest of the natural world and with each other? Episode 11 of The Repair, our series on the climate emergency. Reported and produced by John Biewen, with co-host Amy ...
