Temperature Check Podcast, Season 3
Pivot Points
This season of Temperature Check, we’re featuring the stories of six people who made changes to their lives or careers in order to bring change to their community.
How does a special education teacher nearing retirement become a renowned environmental justice advocate? What leads a climate journalist to become an electrician, or a corporate executive to create a mobility-justice nonprofit? Find out in these immersive and illuminating episodes.
Listen to Temperature Check on: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify
Or find all episodes + full transcripts below.
In This Series
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Taking on big coal to protect Navajo water
After getting her linguistics degree, Nicole Horseherder planned to return home to Black Mesa and teach. But with the region’s aquifers under threat from coal companies, she rallied against them – and won.
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On Chicago’s South Side, one bike ride became a passion for cycling and racial equity
Struggling with depression and on leave from his corporate job, Olatunji Oboi Reed decided to get his bike out of the basement. That ride set him on a new path that led to his current work, promoting racial equity in transportation and beyond.
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Near a polluting California port, a teen’s path to studying climate health
Growing up, Hamid Torabzadeh experienced the impacts of air pollution. In high school, he found a club that showed him his path to doing something about it. Now a college freshman, he's studying to be what he calls a "new type of doctor."
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A theater kid who decided to take climate stories mainstream
Maya Lilly had achieved the theater dream: studying at Juilliard. But when her environmental passion didn’t find a home there, it set her on a mission to bring climate storytelling to Hollywood.
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Why this successful climate writer quit to become an electrician
When Nate Johnson — a former Grist journalist — felt his passion for writing start to wane, he found a new direction. Now, instead of writing about the need to electrify everything, Nate is doing that work himself.
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In ‘Cancer Alley,’ a teacher called to fight
For decades, Sharon Lavigne saw her neighbors in St. James Parish, Louisiana, suffer due to industrial pollution. But when yet another plant planned to open in her community, she decided to do something about it.