The Best “Green” Podcasts
Looking for the best podcasts about the environment, and your body and mind?
We reviewed the best podcasts of 2017 and discovered more than a few sustainability podcasts, mind-body podcasts, herbal medicine podcasts, health podcasts, and the best podcasts about creativity that are all worth listening to in 2018.
Below, we spotlight our favorite award-winning and little-known podcasts that address aspects of food, beauty, health, medicine, mindfulness, and the environment from a variety of different angles.
Did we leave something out? Let us know your favorites on social media at @gardencollage.
The People’s Pharmacy
The People’s Pharmacy with Joe & Terry Graedon is an NPR-affiliated public radio show that is kind of dry when it comes to traditional “entertainment”, but it is a great serious listen for nutrition, health, and alternative medicine buffs.
Featuring a mix of policy news and updates related to pharmaceuticals (natural and otherwise) as well interviews with leading industry experts on various common health problems, their show– which features topics like “How To Protect Your Vision” and “How Do Endochrine Disruptors Affect Your Health?”– answers many intriguing questions about topics you’ve likely heard of but might not know much about.
The Mind Palace Podcast
The Mind Palace Podcast is simply a podcast about what it means to lead a meaningful life, addressing everything from life choices, beauty, breathwork, pop culture, and free speech to language, politics, trends, and, most recently, “Meyers-Briggs madness.”
We like that this podcast covers the full spectrum of intentional living, and we recommend it specifically for people who are looking to find more meaning in their work, relationships, mindfulness practice, passion projects, and/or daily lives.
Food Is…
Documenting the issue of food waste, the Food Is… series is a documentary project by Chris King that’s aimed at addressing the sometimes invisible ways we can reduce avoidable food waste while motivating people to take action to change the culture of conspicuous food consumption.
One episode, for example, features an interview with Hannah McCollum, the entrepreneur behind ChicP— a company that gathers food that would otherwise go to waste and turns it into delicious hummus.
The Energy Gang
With titles like “Tax Reform and Tesla’s Semi-Truck”, “Did Steve Bannon Hint at a Solar Trade War?”, and “Painful Lessions from Hurricane Harvey”, The Energy Gang podcast is a weekly digest on energy, cleantech, and the environment through the lens of current evets.
Produced by Greentech Media, the show features industry-focused debates and discussions between energy specialist Jigar Shah and Greentech EIC Stephen Lacey, who together address everything from energy storage and distribution to grid modification and the technological, political, and market forces that drive energy and environmental issues.
The Herbrally Podcast
The Herbrally Podcast is an excellent podcast for herbalism lovers and natural remedy junkies, organized under the tagline, “Herbalism in your neck of the woods”. The podcast features recorded lectures from various experts in the (literal and metaphorical) field, who address a variety of super-relevant topics, from “Plant Medicine and Sexual Trauma” to “Pumpkin Spice: A Deep Dive into the Medicinal Properties of This Beloved Fall Blend”.
If you love learning about how to heal yourself using natural remedies, teas, tinctures, herbs, wild edibles, homemade salves, hydrosols, biofeedback, and other holistic health care methods, this is the podcast for you. Recently, Herbrally has spotlighted everything from blue vervain to moringa to the best plant medicine for menstrual health.
Think: Sustainability
Think: Sustainability is a podcast dedicated to exploring practical solutions to global warming and issues related to our finite supply of natural resources.
The podcast addresses common questions related to these topics in the spirit of “How Things Work”– episode address quirky concepts like the new phenomenon of “thunderstorm asthma” and why it’s getting worse with Climate Change; Australia’s war on feral cats (yes, you read that right); what happens when a species goes extinct; is being a vegan sustainable; the carbon footprint of your Facebook posts; the idea of “acid rain”; gassy corals (yes, you also read that right); why Lake Chad is shrinking; how drone technology is engaging with conservation; and there’s even a podcast called “Bill Gates really loves chickens”. We’ll let you explore that last one on your own.
The Slow Home Podcast
Brooke McAlary hosts The Slow Home Podcast to address “slower” ways of living, discussing everything from barefoot walking to “the Age of Distraction” and how to live slow while still being connected on social media (and doing so with a lovely Australian accent).
For the uninitiated, some of the ideas discussed may be revelatory– and for those of us already in the flow, it offers ample reminders and good tips for how to maintain the ethos of slow living in a fast-paced world.
The World Resources Institute Podcast
The WRI Podcast features smart, incisive commentary and direct-to-the-issue conversations with various players in global resource development. The podcast focuses on the intersection of socio-economic development and the environment, from electrifying continental Africa to rainforest restoration in Brazil to efforts to restore water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.
This is a great podcast for people interested in global development, public health, policy, government, and the ways these myriad issues intersect.
Climate One
How can art help us understand the human cost of Climate Change? This was a question asked of world renown artist Ai Weiwei in a recent interview for Climate One Podcast, which addresses environmental, energy, policy, and humanitarian issues in a series of live, recorded conversations between activists, artists, policy experts, change makers, and other stakeholders.
By gathering “inspiring, credible, and compelling information”, host Greg Dalton provides essential insight from concerned citizens that is helpful for those looking to stay informed and/or get involved in affecting change.
This is a great podcast for activists and those looking to educate themselves about climate issues in popular culture; recent pods include topics like “Greening Professional Sports”, the aforementioned “Ai Weiwei: Human Flow”, and “Concussions, Cigarettes, and Climate”, which is prefaced as such:
“What do football, tobacco, and oil have in common? A common narrative of deceit. When tobacco companies faced public scrutiny about the link between cancer and smoking, the industry launched a campaign questioning the scientific evidence. Oil companies and the National Football League have used the same playbook to mislead the public. Listen to the stories of how industries endeavor to confuse.”
Low Tox Life
Hosted by Alexx Stuart of lowtoxlife.com, the Low Tox Life Podcast addresses sustainability, health, fashion, farming, lowering your toxic load, and happiness (all of our favorite things!) for those who theoretically would love to live in an “off grid hippie commune” but who know that just isn’t a practice or universal solution for modern living.
Offering smart, achievable suggestions for how to improve your daily life, Low Tox Life takes a relaxed and curious approach to better living, inside and out.
50 Shades of Green Divas
I know. The name alone is enough. The 50 Shades of Green Divas Podcast explores crazy, awesome, seemingly-unrelated-but-actually-related topics that intersect with sustainability. Like sex, among other topics addressed in a recent podcast titled “Intimacy with Nature.” Other GD segments address everything from “eco-sexuality” to “green dude stuff,” “Green Divas Confessions,” “GDs iMatter Youth,” and “Green Divas Foodie-Philes.” And yes, there are a lot of nature puns.
The Spirit of 608 Podcast
The Spirit of 608 Podcast features conversations among women at the forefront of fashion, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and tech– or F.E.S.T., as host Lorraine Sanders likes to call it. In this podcast, Sanders explores the many ways various innovators are working to build a better fashion industry for consumers, creatives, workers, the environment, and more.
PRI’s Living On Earth
The Living On Earth Podcast is a great incisive podcast focusing on global environmental news and developments. Hosted by Steve Curwood and presented by Public Radio International, LOE reports on a wide variety of ecological issues animated by expert interviews and input from leaders from the scientific and legislative community. Recent topics include “Bitcoin, the Energy Hog”, “Saving Trees That Helped Save Dust Bowl America”, and a segment about how “Heat Drives Migration.”
The Herbal Highway
Helmed by Sarah Holmes of The Blue Otter School of Medicine in Siskiyou County, California, The Herbal Highway is a super-informative podcast dedicated to herbal healing inside and out. From this podcast we’ve learned everything from how to heal a cough naturally to how to live and thrive with diabetes.
For The Wild
For The Wild features hard-hitting and emotionally engaging stories featuring engaging activist personalities like Bill McKibbon on “Dampening the Blow of a Spiraling Climate.”
They also have conversations with experts like pioneering oceanographer Dr. Sylvia A. Earle– the first female chief scientist of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, a celebrated best-selling scientific author, and a woman who has lead over 100 expeditions and logged over 7,000 hours underwater. If nothing more, this episode alone is worth listening to on repeat!
Love these podcasts? Watch some of these inspiring environmental documentaries next.
