Shocked

Sea level rise doesn’t look like a single global flood—it looks like repeated, localized disasters: flooded streets, collapsing home values, and hard choices about where to live. This episode explores how coastal communities, housing markets, and homeowners are reckoning with a slow-moving crisis that is already reshaping where and how we live. When water comes to your doorstep, who gets to stay—and who decides?

Shocked is part of the University of Chicago Podcast Network and produced by Magnificent Noise for the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, which combines a 360-degree approach to educat...

To compete with China’s dominance in battery technology, the U.S. needs more than just ambition—it needs new chemistry. This episode traces the rise and fall of an American sodium battery startup and the quiet race to build a cheaper, safer, next-generation power source. Can innovation outpace geopolitics—or does the future already belong to lithium?

More on Shirley Meng: https://climate.uchicago.edu/people/y-shirley-meng/

More on the Energy Technologies Initiative: https://energytech.pme.uchicago.edu/

Shocked is part of the University of Chicago Podcast Network and produced by Magnif...

Accurate weather forecasts save lives—but not everyone gets them. In this episode, Amy Harder looks at how AI is transforming weather prediction in places where the stakes are highest and the resources are few. Can better data close the climate survival gap?

More on the underlying research: https://epic.uchicago.edu/research/long-range-forecasts-as-climate-adaptation-experimental-evidence-from-developing-country-agriculture/

More on the India monsoon forecasts: https://humancenteredforecasts.climate.uchicago.edu/news/artificial-intelligence-is-helping-indian-farmers-adapt-to-climate-change-forecast-accurately-predicting-an-unusual-monsoon-season-reached-38-million/

More on the scale-up efforts: https://humancenteredforecasts.climate.uchicago.edu/

Shocked is part of the University of Chicago Podcast Network and produced by...

In theory, the free market should help solve climate change. In reality, it’s rarely that simple. This episode explores how emissions markets work, where they’re taking off to reduce pollution, and why economists still believe markets are essential—if politics will let them be.

More on the pollution market in India: https://emissionsmarkets.org/evidence-from-india/

More on the scale up efforts: https://emissionsmarkets.org/

Shocked is part of the University of Chicago Podcast Network and produced by Magnificent Noise for the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, which combine...

For years, the EPA tried to inspect as many polluters as possible—but with limited staff, only a small fraction of sites could be checked each year. This episode looks at how a new, AI-driven approach is helping regulators target the worst offenders, and the data shows it actually works. What happens when environmental enforcement goes evidence-based?

Read the op-ed that started it all: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/opinion/sunday/see-red-flags-hear-red-flags.html

More on the project: https://urbanlabs.uchicago.edu/projects/epa-inspection-targeting

More from Michael Greenstone: https://climate.uchicago.edu/people/michael-greenstone/

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In the 1990s, millions of vultures quietly vanished from India—and the consequences were deadly. This is the story of how a cheap painkiller set off a chain reaction involving rabid dogs, polluted water, and tens of thousands of human deaths. Economists now say it may be the most expensive extinction you’ve never heard of, and is just one example of how wildlife extinctions impact our human world.

More on the study on vultures: https://climate.uchicago.edu/the-social-costs-of-keystone-species-collapse-evidence-from-the-decline-of-vultures-in-india/

More on the study on bats: https://climate.uchicago.edu/the-economic-impacts-of-ecosystem-disruptions-costs-from-substituting-biological-pest-control/

More from Eyal...

When disaster strikes and funding fails, some experts and leaders are considering a Plan B: deliberately cooling the planet by reflecting sunlight back into space. This episode traces the science, the politics, and the ethics of geoengineering—from volcanic eruptions to oil companies investing in carbon capture. What happens when the future starts to sound like science fiction?

More from David Keith: https://climate.uchicago.edu/people/david-keith/

More on his Climate Systems Engineering initiative: https://climateengineering.uchicago.edu/

Shocked is part of the University of Chicago Podcast Netw...

Air conditioning isn’t the luxury some consider it to be—it’s essential to life in a warming world. The real problem is the fossil fuels that power it. This episode of Shocked explores what it means to use energy well, from AC to AI, and whether “less” is always the right answer.

Special thanks this episode to Ankit Kalanki 

More from Michael Greenstone: https://climate.uchicago.edu/people/michael-greenstone/

More on Climate Vault: https://climatevault.com/

Shocked is part of the University of Chicago Podcast Netwo...

Are you tired of the same climate and energy stories? A warmer world is here. We’re living with it. Now what? Will countries ever stop burning fossil fuels? Should we use less energy? Can we adapt to a warmer world? What will it cost?  Sometimes, we need to start by reexamining things we thought we knew.

Shocked is part of the University of Chicago Podcast Network and produced by Magnificent Noise for the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, which combines a 360-degree approach to education with frontier research having an impact in front-line communities glo...