The Climate Ambassador Podcast

Season 4 Trailer

This Season, Daithí will be chatting to a diverse and fascinating range of guests, who are taking brave and impactful climate action in their communities. We will feature thinkers and innovators from the fields of Irish Folklore, building and upcycling, transport, digital carbon, rewilding, sustainable finance, and nature connection, as well as the inspiring stories of some of our very own Climate Ambassadors!

A strong theme throughout this season is connection. Connection to the natural world, to our heritage and practices, and to our communities.

The first episode of Season 4 was released on Monday the 17th of June, 2024.

Catch up on previous episodes here.

S4Ep6: Emily Kennedy and Hilda O’Grady – Climate Ambassador Stories

In this episode, Daithí shares the podcast mic with two very inspiring Climate Ambassadors: Emily Kennedy and Hilda O’Grady.

Emily won an outstanding achievement award in 2023 for her work-focused initiatives, which included speaking at the Mary Robinson Climate Conference, connecting her colleagues to nature through facilitating work visits to beehives and organising swap shops and repair workshops at her workplace in Price Waterhouse Cooper. Emily gives some very credible and actionable steps for achieving gender equality in work.

Hilda also won an outstanding achievement award for her community-focused work, consisting of turbo-charging her Tidy Towns group in Kinvara to focus predominantly on Climate and Biodiversity, planting over 9,000 trees with the Kinvara-Ballinderreen Tree Gang, and working on various other local issues such as facilitating zero waste options at Farmers Market. Hilda provides wise and practical advice for sustaining successful working relationships in a community setting.

Explore more:

The Sustainable Life School –The sustainable Life School
The TED talk “How can I use my talents to address the climate crisis?” Climate Action Venn Diagrams — Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Corporate Hive Programme – Long Garden Bees – Beekeeping Courses & Corporate Beehive packages
Re-Jingled Clothes Repair Workshop – Re-Jingled | Dublin | Facebook
Kinvara Tidy Towns – https://kinvara.ie/kinvara-tidy-towns/
Kinvara–Ballinderreen Tree Gang – Kinvara-Ballinderreen Tree Gang – People planting native trees for climate stability & biodiversity (kbtreegang.com)
Kinvara Ballinderreen Tree Gang: – Kinvara Ballinderreen Tree Gang | Facebook
Éire Composites – ÉireComposites (eirecomposites.com)
Miyawaki method – Miyawaki method shows dense Irish forest can grow rapidly (rte.ie)

S4Ep5: Easkey Britton – Blue Health: Water and Wellbeing

The marvellous Easkey Britton joins Daithí for this episode. A pioneer of women’s big wave surfing, a Marine Social Scientist and author. We bring you a brilliant and inspiring conversation about Easkey’s relationship with Water, and her academic work on the benefits to human health from spending time around bodies of water.

Easkey offers a very compelling alternative to how we can appreciate and take better care of water, given the new challenges of ocean warming and changes to seasonal rainfall as a result of Climate Change. Easkey also discusses her experience with the ‘Deep Adaptation framework, a method for fostering mutual support and collaboration in the process of anticipating and experiencing societal disruption and even collapse.

The spoken word performance in this episode is provided by The Accidental Rapper

Explore more:

https://easkeybritton.com/
Deepadaptation.info
https://www.instagram.com/easkeysurf/
‘Into the sea’ Film about Easkey surfing in Iran: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5950068/
https://www.instagram.com/theaccidentalrapper/

S4Ep4: Urban Nature for Health

In this episode Daithí chats with Dr. Tadhg MacIntyre, Professor of Environmental Psychology at Maynooth University about the science behind how people relate to their environments. The relationship between human health and environmental health, and the fascinating ways in which this is influencing the design of our cities.

It also has huge implications for achieving behaviour change for sustainability – the evidence shows that the more we are connected to an environment, the more we take action to protect it! They also touch on the growing area of “virtual nature”, and how this may be deployed to support local environmental initiatives in the future.

Explore more:

S4Ep3: Skills for a Resourceful Future

Daithí chats to Harrison Gardner, of Common Knowledge, which delivers practical courses in upskilling and self-sufficiency in the Burren, County Clare. We covered a lot in this conversation, from reconnecting to the value of the objects we use every day, to the huge demand for their courses from people who want to be more handy around the house.

Common Knowledge is socially engaged, providing access courses to some participants who couldn’t afford to attend, as well as looking to marginalised communities like LGBTQ+ groups to find new solutions to the climate crisis. At the end of the conversation we feature a reflection on climate action and a song from musical artist, Sive. She is a former Climate Ambassador – as well as an amazing songwriter and musician!

Explore more:

S4Ep2: Social Enterprise in a Circular Economy

Dr. Sarah Miller is CEO of the Rediscovery Centre, Ireland’s national hub for circular economy innovation. Sarah has been with the centre since the early days of 2004, playing a key role in its growth and success.

Tune in for a fantastic and engaging conversation about Sarah’s lifelong dedication to circularity, from growing up influenced by an “army of strong women” as she described, her passion for nature-based solutions, and the Rediscovery Centre’s mission to drive public awareness and citizen engagement in the circular economy.

Sarah gives us a 360° tour of various projects at the centre, including research partnerships, impactful social enterprises, and the transformation of their Ballymun headquarters, The Boiler House, into an iconic, fully circular building.

Sarah also shares exciting plans and addresses the challenges of promoting reuse and repair, envisioning a movement that grows in every corner of the country. Join us for an inspiring episode filled with innovative ideas and practical solutions to create a more resourceful and sustainable society.

Explore more:

Listen to Season 3 Episode 3, with Ossian Smyth, Minister of State with responsibility for the Circular Economy.
The Rediscovery Centre
Paint Reuse Network
Circular Economy Academy
Global Action Plan
Big Toy Swap
Jiminy Eco Toys
Caoimhín Ó’ Raghallaigh

The content for this episode was researched by Alex Neuroth.

S4Ep1: Irish Language, Mythology & Connection to the Land

Daithí kicks off season four of the Climate Ambassador podcast with none other than Manchán Magan, author and documentary maker. Listen and discover how easy it is to plant a forest in Ireland. Learn about the ancient practice of having to prove your ability to nurture pastureland before being permitted to start a family! Find answers in our landscape and feel the land rising as you connect with us.

We examine Irish folklore and old Irish words for the environment, and what they tell us about the way that people on this Island related to the natural world around them going back thousands of years. We also talked about mistakes that have often been made in communicating about climate change, and Manchán gave some wonderful insights as to how we can have more constructive and inclusive conversations.

Manchán writes for the Irish Times and has made dozens of documentaries for TG4 and RTÉ, including Crainn na hÉireann (The trees of Ireland) and An Fód Deireanach (The Last Sod). He is the author of the award-winning, best-selling ‘Thirty-Two Words for Field’ and ‘Listen to the Land Speak’. He was brought up through Irish for the first few years of his life, and now lives in an Oak wood with bees and hens, in a grass-rooved house near Lough Lene, County Westmeath.

Lisa O’Neill sings ‘Old Note’ from her 2023 album ‘All of this is Chance’.

Explore more: