Back in 2012, the Department of Defense issued a first-of-its-kind “Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap.” It was designed to prepare the U.S. military for increasing threats to national security in the form of rising sea levels, increasing global temperatures, and growing conflicts over basic resources like food and water. It stated that “Climate change is expected to play a significant role in the DOD’s ability to fulfill its mission in the future.”

Fast-forward to today, and Sherri Goodman says the DOD now sees combating climate change as central to its mission.   

Sherri was appointed the first-ever deputy undersecretary of defense focusing on environmental security. One of her first assignments was cleaning up nuclear weapons development and production sites. And in 1998, she helped develop the military’s first climate change plan, focused mainly on reducing emissions.

This week, host Bill Loveless talks with Sherri about her latest book, “Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security.” Sherri explains how far the military’s approach to climate change has come over the past 25 years. 

Sherri is secretary general of the International Military Council on Climate and Security and a senior fellow at the Wilson Center. She’s also founder and former executive director of the Center for Naval Analyses Military Advisory Board and is board chair of the Council on Strategic Risks, which includes the Center for Climate and Security.

It’s no secret that Republicans and Democrats don’t see eye to eye on climate change. 

According to a Pew Research Survey conducted earlier this year, just 12% of Republicans and Republican-leaners think climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress. Meanwhile, the official 2024 Democratic party platform states there’s “nothing more important than addressing the climate crisis."

Energy and environmental law professor David Spence says today’s news and social media are partly responsible for the divide. 

In his new book, “Climate of Contempt: How to Rescue the U.S. Energy Transition from Voter Partisanship,” David argues it’s all but impossible for the government to take significant action to address global warming in a media environment focused on persuading more than educating. 

This week host Bill Loveless talks with David about his book and his perspective on the ideological polarization and negative partisanship that’s been building in the U.S. in the past 10-15 years. And how he believes getting us all offline and engaging with each other in person can help push regulatory politics forward.

David is the Rex G. Baker Chair in Natural Resources Law in the School of Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s also a professor of business, government, and society in the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin, where he teaches courses in energy and environmental regulation. And he’s co-author of a leading casebook “Energy, Economics, and the Environment.”

Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Department of Energy has been flush with cash for the past couple of years. Between the two measures, the DOE now has nearly $100 billion to put toward clean energy and grid development projects around the country through funding and loans.

There’s an expectation that these contributions will drive private investment—and they have been. This July, the DOE reported nearly $50 billion in funding awards already, with more than $60 billion in private investments matching federal dollars.

This week, host Bill Loveless talks with David Crane about where these funds have been going and what effects they’re having on clean energy applications around the country. They also discuss how the DOE is addressing nationwide energy challenges like transmission line permitting, storage, and other hurdles to decarbonization.

David is the under-secretary for infrastructure at the Department of Energy. He previously served as director of DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. He was also CEO of Climate Real Impact Solutions, as well as NRG Energy.

China’s dominance of global supply chains for many goods, including clean energy technology, is increasing concerns about resilience, security, and geopolitical influence in today’s new era of great power competition. At the same time, efforts to curb China’s dominance are raising concerns about the cost of clean energy at a time when its rapid deployment is needed. 

So are we in a new Cold War with China? Should American policymakers try to decouple from China? And how should policymakers address China’s supply chain dominance of the materials needed for the energy transition?

This week, host Jason Bordoff talks with Dmitri Alperovitch about his new book “World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century.” They discuss what the strategic challenges from China mean for American policymakers, how the U.S. can diversify critical supply chains away from China, and the security of America’s energy infrastructure. 

Dmitri is the co-founder and chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator. He is a co-founder and former CTO of CrowdStrike. Dmitri previously served as special advisor to the Department of Defense and currently serves on the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's Cyber Safety Review Board.