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Climate Curious… wrapped? With the end of the year upon us, join us to take a beat and look back at 2025 to analyse the climate solutions you loved most from 2025. Climate Curious co-hosts Maryam and Ben reminisce on your most loved moments from the year, and draw out the topics and speakers you found magnetic.
The four stories:
1.How Uru Uru team is cleaning up a sacred lake in Bolivia. Environmental activist, Gustavo Blanco, discusses how the giant reeds called ‘totora’ are being used to revive polluted lakes in Bolivia.
2.How climate crashed the Super Bowl. The world’s first climate ad aired at the Super Bowl earlier this year. We hear from climate marketing professor John Marshall on how the campaign hit a home run for climate action.
3.The true crime series for people who love the planet. Whether you’re a true crime fanatic or a climate normie, this miniseries on green crime and psychology behind those committing environmental crimes with Dr. Julia Shaw cannot be missed!
4. How Atmos is keeping climate storytelling in Vogue. Atmos Editor-in-chief ,Willow Defebaugh, shares her work in climate storytelling with Climate Curious, as well as tips for aspiring climate creatives.
Join us in 2026 at our live podcast event!
Tickets for Climate Curious LIVE, 11th February 2025, ‘Climate OGs: The history & future of climate progress: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/climate-curious-live-tickets-1978623502158
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Created by TEDxLondon
Executive produced by Josie Colter
Produced by Ben Beheshty
Curated by Deesha Chandra
Hosted by Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst
Communications by Tara Cooper and Issey Gladston
00:00 Introduction
00:10 Reflecting on 2025: A year in review
00:51 Highlights and memorable moments
04:18 Climate Curious Wrapped 2025
04:33 Nature and biodiversity success stories
06:18 Climate and culture: Super Bowl case study
08:16 The role of law in climate action
08:50 Psychology of climate crimes
10:24 The power of storytelling in climate communication
11:58 Conclusion and upcoming events
[00:00:00] Introduction
[00:00:00] Ben Hurst: Welcome to Climate Quickies, bite-sized nuggets of Climate Goodness. From our TEDxLondon experts. In under 10 minutes,
[00:00:10] Reflecting on 2025: A year in review
[00:00:10] Maryam Pasha: Ben, we have made it to the end of 2025. [00:00:15] We’ve
[00:00:15] Ben Hurst: survived another one. We’ve made it. We’ve made it. I’m exhausted. This has been a long year. This has been a long year. That is what I think
[00:00:23] Maryam Pasha: everyone feels.
[00:00:24] Maryam Pasha: Yeah. That this year has really, it’s both been, I mean, I know this is such a cliche to say, but [00:00:30] it’s both been lightning fast and also. How has so much stuff happened in one year?
[00:00:36] Ben Hurst: Yeah. Time. Time feels like it’s always getting faster, but this also feels like a crazy amount of stuff to have crammed into one year.
[00:00:43] Ben Hurst: It feels like I’m, I’m remembering [00:00:45] things that have happened earlier in the year and they feel like they were like two years ago. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I’m like, oh, yeah, we did that back in 2020. I, I mean, I
[00:00:51] Highlights and memorable moments
[00:00:51] Maryam Pasha: was trying to, I was just reflecting on like how much, like how many amazing people we’ve spoken to this year, can
[00:00:56] Ben Hurst: you imagine?
[00:00:56] Ben Hurst: And
[00:00:57] Maryam Pasha: all the places we’ve been, and I can’t quite believe [00:01:00] it. Like it really does feel like two years ago, like I was, yeah. Going through it like you went to Nairobi.
[00:01:05] Ben Hurst: Nuts. Nuts in and of itself. Yeah. Crazy. I
[00:01:08] Maryam Pasha: went to Vancouver.
[00:01:10] Ben Hurst: Amazing. Immense. Yeah,
[00:01:11] Maryam Pasha: immense. We did, we went to Oxford together. Yeah. [00:01:15] Um, I mean, and that’s not to mention like we did a mini series this year for the first time.
[00:01:20] Maryam Pasha: I’m
[00:01:20] Ben Hurst: curious on crime. I very. That was one of my highlights of the year. Yeah, definitely. Because,
[00:01:25] Maryam Pasha: you know, so much is done remotely these days. Yeah. And [00:01:30] just being able to be with each other in a space and record, actually sit
[00:01:33] Ben Hurst: in a studio and, and feel each other’s vibes and like also discover stuff in real time is like a, I know, a very intense experience.
[00:01:40] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:01:40] Maryam Pasha: There was some incredible episodes that was really a, a highlight for me. What [00:01:45] about you? What else has been like some highlights for you this year?
[00:01:48] Ben Hurst: You know. I think Nairobi was a big, big, big highlight for me because I don’t know if I’m like gonna make sense here, but sometimes I feel like the ideas that we talk about and the [00:02:00] experiences that I’m living are two very separate things.
[00:02:02] Ben Hurst: Do you know what I mean? Like people will talk about things like going back to nature and I’m always like, that must be so cool and, but like, I’m not actually in nature. And so being in Nairobi was crazy because I was. Fully immersed in like [00:02:15] what was actually happening. And it was like people were talking about geothermal technology and I’m, I was literally seeing it in real time.
[00:02:23] Ben Hurst: Um, and also again, like anytime you go to a a, a TED conference, you are not just hearing [00:02:30] ideas like you are meeting the people, you’re spending time with them, you’re eating lunch with these people. And so like breaking bread with someone and sitting and, and experiencing the fullness of who they are is like a, a very different type of experience.
[00:02:40] Ben Hurst: So I think that was like an amazing. An amazing time for me.
[00:02:44] Maryam Pasha: You know, [00:02:45] I got, I was thinking about my highlights. Obviously the, you know, going to Vancouver is always really fun and we got to meet lots of people and be with them. But I really loved the live recording we, we had of, in, you know, when we did that partnership with [00:03:00] Earth Percent and with Climate Spring of the event they had mm-hmm.
[00:03:03] Maryam Pasha: Back earlier in the year about big oil. Yeah. ’cause we got to hear from one of my, not just one, but we got to hear about from a few of my life. Fa Fave faves. Mm. Tori Tessa, but [00:03:15] Amy Vest Devet, who is just this incredible investigative journalist. Her podcast Drilled was one of the podcasts that we kind of, when we were starting this whole thing Mm, was just so inspiring to us.
[00:03:28] Maryam Pasha: And so that was just really, who was just [00:03:30] really cool, um, to get to hear that event. And then the other one, I think for me that was really, um, I obviously loved the live event we did with. David Lan and Da and Li Love Seger. And you know, that was all [00:03:45] amazing. Yeah. But I think, do you remember the podcast we recorded with, uh, Nazar?
[00:03:50] Maryam Pasha: Don’t even, you were in person. Don’t
[00:03:51] Ben Hurst: even, don’t even joke. ’cause I, I was thinking, I don’t know if I’m supposed to say that I really like that one, but I, I did actually learn so much in that podcast. That was [00:04:00] crazy.
[00:04:00] Maryam Pasha: Okay. We need to stop reminiscing. We could do it all day. Yeah. We, we’ve got something to do.
[00:04:04] Maryam Pasha: But just, um, so I guess to say that our amazing team here. Well, they’ve, they’ve crunched the numbers, right? Yeah. And we felt like it would be a really good time to take a moment and look [00:04:15] back at the guests we’ve had this year that resonated with all of you.
[00:04:18] Climate Curious Wrapped 2025
[00:04:18] Ben Hurst: Okay, so this is our climate, curious wrapped 2025, and we’ve sifted through all of the data to see what you are all connecting with.
[00:04:27] Maryam Pasha: There are a few themes that keep popping up, and one [00:04:30] big one is stories around nature and biodiversity.
[00:04:33] Nature and biodiversity success stories
[00:04:33] Ben Hurst: A great example of this was our most listened to episode of 2025 Gustavo Blanco, talking about the work of the Uru Uru team in Bolivia, cleaning up their polluted lake water. [00:04:45]
[00:04:45] Maryam Pasha: This was a really tactile solutions-based story and really exciting.
[00:04:49] Maryam Pasha: It’s utilizing indigenous wisdom, finding a novel and natural way to detoxify and clean lake water that was polluted by mining and urbanization.
[00:04:58] Ben Hurst: It’s pretty mad, actually. So in [00:05:00] case you missed it, here’s Gustavo and what the Tartaro read actually is and how it works.
[00:05:05] Gustavo Blanco: We are just a group of youth indigenous leaders that care about the environment and we wanted to take action.
[00:05:13] Gustavo Blanco: So we found [00:05:15] a ways which we could do that, and we looked up at the heritage that we’ve been given by many indigenous communities through far history, including the use of unique plan, which is called Toto. This plant is very resilient in the and [00:05:30] DN areas of Bolivia and is able to consume the pollutants, the heavy metals that are on this lake like sink and other metals that contaminate the lake.
[00:05:39] Gustavo Blanco: As these were, the plant is able to consume it as these were nutrients and [00:05:45] is able to store it on their leaves to later be removed and to later help the contamination process in the lake. So this process is not really a conventional method of the contamination, but has been [00:06:00] proven by research done in the area by researchers on the ecological area to be effective.
[00:06:07] Maryam Pasha: Such a great success story and really unbelievable how powerful those plants are. Next in our list of themes [00:06:15] that resonated with stories on the intersection of climate and culture.
[00:06:18] Climate and culture: Super Bowl case study
[00:06:18] Ben Hurst: So we had plenty of guests this year that fit this mold, but one of our top episodes was with John Marshall on how climate crashed the Super Bowl.
[00:06:28] Maryam Pasha: Taking something as culturally [00:06:30] significant as the Super Bowl and using that platform for climate was a really cool case study in climate communications on a crazy large scale.
[00:06:37] Ben Hurst: And as far as the global stage goes, it doesn’t get much bigger than that. And the coolest bit about it was that it wasn’t just some techno [00:06:45] futuristic mumbo, jumbo climate ad.
[00:06:47] Ben Hurst: The idea at its core was actually about a mother’s love. So here’s John on what they did.
[00:06:53] John Marshall: We got ranked a top 10 Super Bowl ad by the New York Times. And so that was exciting for our team, particularly ’cause we [00:07:00] beat Doritos, which was great. And so what makes a good ad for that? I think a great Super Bowl ad to something that tells a true story in a way that appeals to something that people care about.
[00:07:10] John Marshall: And our message was about, about the kids that we love. Interestingly. [00:07:15] The way you usually win the Super Bowl sweepstakes is you get yourself a great spokesperson, Catherine O’Hara or Roger Federer, and you do something that’s really funny, but also really insightful. Or you have a talking baby and climate change.
[00:07:26] John Marshall: Isn’t that funny, is it? And so what, we didn’t have the [00:07:30] spokespeople. We didn’t have the talking babies, but what we did have, we thought was a story that deeply resonates. We all love our children, so this is a uniting idea. And I think most importantly, and the data says it’s bigger than politics, bigger than special interests, something that.
[00:07:43] John Marshall: Really appeals, [00:07:45] something we all hold deeply and apparently bigger than our love of salty snacks. And so it was a very effective ad and I think effective because what is great marketing? Great marketing is a story about the truth that’s really well told.
[00:07:58] Ben Hurst: If you haven’t heard this or any of the [00:08:00] episodes we are featuring today, then you should definitely go back and give them a listen.
[00:08:03] Maryam Pasha: Also, we’ve had loads of people reach out with really helpful and encouraging messages. So if you have any thoughts that you wanna share with us, then feel free links to that and the episodes featured are in the description.
[00:08:14] Ben Hurst: [00:08:15] Moving on.
[00:08:16] The role of law in climate action
[00:08:16] Ben Hurst: Another thing that we touched on many times this year and one that you all responded to was the law.
[00:08:22] Maryam Pasha: Woo. Looking at the plays, you know, the streams or the listens, the law as a tool for climate action clearly hit a nerve with you [00:08:30] all stories of crime and climate, as well as the people being held account for their crimes.
[00:08:34] Ben Hurst: And unsurprisingly, our miniseries on green crimes with Dr. Julia Shaw was a standout for the year.
[00:08:41] Maryam Pasha: Getting the psychological analysis on people who commit climate [00:08:45] crimes from Julia was so fascinating, and I’m not surprised these episodes were so well received.
[00:08:49] Ben Hurst: Right.
[00:08:50] Psychology of climate crimes
[00:08:50] Ben Hurst: A great example of Julia’s insight was her explaining the psychology of what motivates corporate whistleblowers. I
[00:08:57] Dr. Julia Shaw: think the least kind answer to [00:09:00] that is that you want to have a lesser consequence.
[00:09:03] Dr. Julia Shaw: Okay. ’cause you know that this is now unraveling and your name might come up, and at least this way you get to control the narrative and you get to come out looking like a good guy. Hmm. And these were all men, as far as I know. Right. In fact, environmental crimes, much like crime in general. Almost [00:09:15] entirely meant, I think it’s about power and who’s in engineering and you know, all these kinds of things.
[00:09:18] Dr. Julia Shaw: But in terms of the whistleblower who becomes a whistleblower and how they are talking to people about their crimes, which ultimately is what happened, A lot of it is trying to save face. A lot of it is [00:09:30] expressing the rationalization, expressing to somebody else, telling them your reasons because they’re true.
[00:09:35] Dr. Julia Shaw: Right? Right. It’s not like people are just lying about it. They are trying to share like, I did this because like, I had reasons. I didn’t just do this because I’m a bad person. Mm-hmm. And so I can [00:09:45] understand the need to do that. The kinder side of that, if you wanna go sort of, these are heroes because we absolutely need people to do this and including people who are involved.
[00:09:54] Dr. Julia Shaw: Otherwise we won’t get to the bottom of, especially corporate crimes. Right. But lots of different kinds of problems. And [00:10:00] in those situations, sometimes you also have someone who just says, this is wrong. And I actually want this to be investigated and I need this to stop. And either I was involved from the beginning or from some later point, but I think that’s the more kind of like I, I [00:10:15] actually feel guilty about this.
[00:10:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: And it’s not just that I want the legal consequences for myself to be less.
[00:10:20] Maryam Pasha: We could go on all day with episodes that struck a chord with listeners.
[00:10:24] The power of storytelling in climate communication
[00:10:24] Maryam Pasha: But we’re gonna finish with one final episode from Atmos, editor-in-chief and fellow podcaster Willow dba.
[00:10:31] Ben Hurst: That was definitely one of my favorite episodes, right?
[00:10:33] Ben Hurst: Willow’s. Insight into communication and storytelling is definitely a huge part of her success, and as well as many of the other directions our conversation took. The importance of arts and [00:10:45] creativity in sharing ideas was key.
[00:10:47] Maryam Pasha: Let’s hear from Willow herself.
[00:10:48] Willow Defebaugh: Climate has long had a storytelling problem.
[00:10:52] Willow Defebaugh: It’s had a mm-hmm. You know, it’s, it’s always been very, um, documentary. It’s always been very, mm-hmm. [00:11:00] Um, and, and I don’t want to say that in any kind of condemning or critical way because it’s, it’s, I, I grew up reading National Geographic religiously, you know. And I think aside from that, people associated climate change coverage with data, [00:11:15] and that’s hugely important.
[00:11:17] Willow Defebaugh: And also I think that storytelling is what makes us human, right. It’s the arts always capture our humanity. And if. The climate crisis is a crisis of humanity, then we need to reach [00:11:30] people at that level, right? And so we really wanted to use the arts and use creativity as a way to speak to people’s humanity around this issue to make them feel and ’cause that’s what art has always done.
[00:11:43] Willow Defebaugh: We love these stories, like [00:11:45] these epic stories and myths and fairy tales, right? That get told and told again in different. Movies and, and we’re living in the grain story of human history, arguably.
[00:11:56] Maryam Pasha: Well, that’s it.
[00:11:58] Conclusion and upcoming events
[00:11:58] Maryam Pasha: We’ve hit the end of 2025 and a little reminisce
[00:12:02] Ben Hurst: what a year it has been. Thank you for all of the support and the love that you’ve shown to the podcast.
[00:12:08] Ben Hurst: We love you all. And we hope you have a lovely and a restful holiday season,
[00:12:14] Maryam Pasha: and I know you’re gonna [00:12:15] really miss us, so don’t worry because you can join us at our first Live in Person event in 2026 on the 11th of February in London at the Conduit. Exciting. I know we’ll be taking a look at the history and the future of Climate program.
[00:12:29] Maryam Pasha: And the [00:12:30] company of some amazing climate OGs, climate originals, more info via the link in the description where you can also book your free tickets.
[00:12:38] Ben Hurst: And remember, stay curious.[00:12:41] Stay [00:12:45] curious.
