Hot Mess

Science and Nature Series / 1 Season

Hot Mess is a show about how climate change impacts all of us, and about how we can create a better future for our planet and ourselves.

4m 43s

We’ve Ignored Climate Change For More Than a Century

S1 E1 / 4m 43s

We’ve known about the greenhouse effect for nearly 200 years and about climate change for more than a century, but we’ve had a hard time acting because our brains aren’t a good match for a problem this big.

Why Climate Change is Unjust

S1 E3 / 4m 53s

What do you think of when you hear the words “climate change?” Chances are, you might think of sad nature, somewhere far away. But climate change also affects humans, in every corner of the world, including the corner where you live, and where I live. It impacts the people and places we see everyday, and it will impact some of us more than others.

What the Cutest Animal Can Teach Us About Saving Ourselves

S1 E6 / 4m 29s

Climate change is affecting lots of living things, including the fluffy, cute ones. What can the adorable pika teach humans about adapting to global warming?

Would Your Neighbors Save You From a Flooding Home?

S1 E7 / 5m 25s

Climate change is amplifying extreme weather events like hurricanes, heatwaves and other disasters. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of how best to prepare for this stuff? Moving inland? Buying flood insurance? Stockpiling water? Building stronger relationships might not be high on that list, but maybe it should be.

Why Don’t We Hear About the Ozone Hole Anymore?

S1 E8 / 4m 17s

We don’t hear much about the hole in the ozone layer anymore. That’s because we’ve all but fixed it, thanks to consumer choices and a massive international agreement called the Montreal Protocol. Can we learn anything from this environmental success story that will help us fix climate change?

Beef Is Bad For The Climate. Can We Make It Better?

S1 E10 / 4m 16s

Beef production emits more greenhouse gases than basically anything else we eat, so let’s look at the scale and impact of our bovine pals - and importantly, what we can actually do to make beef less bad.

Who Should Pay To Fix Climate Change?

S1 E11 / 4m 15s

Over the past few centuries, a handful of countries reaped the benefits of fossil fuels and developed their economies, emitting a lot of greenhouse gases along the way. We now know these gases have changed the climate. But since the mid-2000s, an interesting shift has occurred. The majority of greenhouse gas emissions are now coming from large developing countries.

Could Space Mirrors Cool The Globe?

S1 E12 / 3m 59s

We're putting more and more carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere, which are trapping the sun's energy, and lo and behold, our planet is heating up in response. To fix this, we could cut carbon dioxide emissions, but that’s been hard. What if there were a shortcut? What if we could reflect some of the sun’s energy away before it had a chance to get trapped? Like… with space mirrors!?

Why Are Hurricanes Getting Stronger?

S1 E13 / 3m 19s

It’s impossible to say that climate change is responsible for any individual storm or hurricane, but climate change is making these storms stronger. How much stronger? It turns out, Hurricane Harvey is the ideal test case to measure how a warming planet and warming oceans, amplify our worst storms.

Climate change will push millions out. Where will they go?

S1 E14 / 4m 33s

In 2017, storms, floods, and droughts displaced 18 million people from their homes worldwide. And by some estimates, over the next three decades, 200 million people may need to leave their homes to escape the same kind of disasters, made worse by climate change. Where in the world will all these people go?

What's actually the worst greenhouse gas?

S1 E15 / 4m 30s

Earth’s atmosphere naturally contains greenhouse gases. Without them, the world would be way too cold for humans. But we are adding extra greenhouse gases, which are causing Earth to heat up and disrupting weather patterns worldwide. So which of these many gases is heating Earth the most?

Could climate change make you allergic to meat?

S1 E16 / 2m 26s

Thanks to climate change, disease carrying critters are expanding their ranges, and their seasons are getting longer -- meaning they have more space and more time to take a bite out of you or me.

What if Carbon Emissions Stopped Tomorrow?

S1 E17 / 5m 14s

Imagine that aliens landed and gifted us a clean, limitless energy source. Instead of killing each other over this technology, we decided to transform the world into a carbon-free society. This wondrous source would power our homes, industries, cars and planes, and humanity’s annual rate of carbon pollution would almost instantly fall to zero. What would that mean for global warming?

What Indigenous Communities Teach Us About Climate Change

S1 E18 / 5m 6s

As the world figures out how to live with a rapidly changing climate, traditional knowledge from indigenous cultures could help us understand just how things are transforming.

How Much Energy Does the Internet Use?

S1 E19 / 3m 24s

About half the world has internet access. That’s 3.6 billion people surfing the web. How much energy is that using? And what is our online world doing to our planet’s climate?

Can Farms and Forests Coexist?

S1 E20 / 4m 59s

Deforestation is a big problem for the climate. This kind of land use releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any single country, besides the United States or China. And most of the deforestation in the world today happens because people want to put farms where forests are. So, figuring out how to farm with trees instead of just chopping them down could help us fight climate change.

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