Today I Learn Climate About Materials
Season 3: Episode 20
Our First Crossover Episode with TILClimate from MIT!
As we are on hiatus this winter planning yet another amazing season of Climify, we thought it would be nice to continue to provide climate education and action through the work of some of our friends. So today, we invited a kindred spirit podcast produced at MIT - TILClimate to our platform to share what they know about materials. The host of TILClimate is Laur Hesse Fisher, the Program Director at the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative.
In this crossover episode with TILClimate, Laur, and Elsa Olivetti dive into materials and their impacts on our planet. As designers, we choose materials to build the things we create. So, knowing more about how to select, reduce, and reuse materials in addition to the knowledge to find vendors that manufacture responsibly can help us be better climate designers.
Laur and the team have provided this great educator guide about materials to use in your studio or classroom!
TIL about materials
Humans use around 90 billion metric tons of materials every year, creating about ⅓ of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Which materials produce the most emissions? You might be surprised.
In this episode of TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate), MIT professor Elsa Olivetti joins host Laur Hesse Fisher to talk about materials, or as Prof. Olivetti calls it, “the study of stuff”. Prof. Olivetti explains where these emissions come from and how to reduce emissions and waste in our manufacturing.
Prof. Olivetti is the Atlantic Richfield Associate Professor of Energy Studies in the Material Science and Engineering Department at MIT. Prof. Olivetti focuses her research on developing strategies to make materials and manufacturing more efficient, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly.
For other climate explanations, check out: https://climate.mit.edu/tilclimate-podcast.
Credits for TILClimate
Laur Hesse Fisher, Host and Producer
David Lishansky, Editor and Producer
Cecelia Bolon, Student Production Assistant
Ruby Wincele, Student Researcher
Music by Blue Dot Sessions
Artwork by Aaron Krol
Special thanks to Tom Kiley and Laura Howells.
Produced by the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Listen to this episode on: Spotify, Apple, Google and other places you get your podcastsAbout our guest
Laur Hesse Fisher
When Laur Hesse Fisher was a kid, she wanted to be either an astronaut or an actress when she grew up. So it’s fitting that she became a science communicator. Currently, she hosts MIT’s climate change podcast, TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate), and leads the development and execution of MIT’s program to engage the public on climate change, through the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI). She focuses on cross-partisan collaborations, as well as bridging the divide between the public and scientists on tricky climate issues. She has experience in a wide range of climate-related fields, including carbon accounting, green building, waste management, social impact assessment, collective intelligence research, and nonprofit leadership.
On the web
climate.mit.edu/tilclimate-podcast
Find more about how to teach climate design in your classroom at www.climatedesigners.org/edu
Music in this episode
Nature sound effect by bbc.co.uk – ©2023 BBC
Theme music by Casual Motive
Design Team
Consulting
Climate Design Assignments
At the end of each episode, we ask our guests what their ideal climate design project would be. They have four weeks with a class full of design students. We translated their response into a project brief that you can use for your class.
