Podcast: How to Save a Planet by Alex Blumberg and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

If you’ve ever tried to understand climate change through the news, you might know the feeling: one minute you’re reading about rising temperatures, the next you’re googling “carbon markets explained” and wondering how you got here. That’s exactly why the podcast How to Save a Planet is such a refreshing listen.

Hosted by Alex Blumberg and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, the show manages to tackle climate solutions in a way that feels surprisingly human. Instead of sounding like a lecture, most episodes feel like you’re listening in on two curious people trying to figure things out together.

And honestly, that’s part of the charm.

The podcast series has over 230 episodes, taking big climate questions such as renewable energy, climate jobs, or how policy actually changes emissions and breaks them down through conversations with scientists, activists, and everyday people working on solutions. But what I like most is that the show doesn’t just throw facts at you. It tells stories as Ayana brings deep climate expertise, while Alex often plays the role of the curious listener asking the kinds of questions most of us are probably thinking.

There’s also a lot more humor than you’d expect from a climate podcast. The hosts occasionally laugh at the absurdity of how complicated climate solutions can be, or admit when something confuses them. At one point they joke about the scale of the challenge, basically acknowledging that saving a planet sounds like a slightly unreasonable weekend project.

But the show never loses its sense of optimism. Instead of focusing only on the problem, the podcast constantly asks the same core question: What can actually work?

That perspective makes the listening experience feel different. You finish an episode not just more informed, but often with a clearer sense of what people around the world are already doing to tackle climate issues.

Personally, I like putting on an episode during a walk or commute. It’s one of those podcasts where you learn something new without feeling overwhelmed. Climate change is obviously a huge topic, but How to Save a Planet makes it feel a little more understandable and occasionally even hopeful. Which, honestly, is not a bad thing to carry with you for the rest of the day.

Check them out here: Blue Mountain Belle