Hopium and Storytelling for Climate Tech: Molly Wood

Written By Marina Psaros

Molly Wood is an audio pioneer, climate investor, and deeply curious human. In our conversation, we talk about storytelling, how the solutions to our environmental problems already exist, and that the people building these solutions are brilliant but sometimes their storytelling about those solutions can be a little ... boring. Plus fusion tested in fish barrels, lithium batteries at the Salton Sea, and mushroom purses!

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Resources and fun stuff related to this episode

  • How We Survive: Molly's documentary podcast series at Marketplace, including the full season on lithium and batteries that took her to Thacker Pass, Nevada and the Salton Sea. A great listen if this episode leaves you wanting the full version.

  • The book that started it: Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140, the sci-fi novel whose line about diamond-coated buildings sent Molly looking for the real engineers working on climate survival.

  • The mycelium rabbit hole: Mushrooms are having a moment as a climate material. People are growing leather replacements (Stella McCartney has partnered with a mycelium-leather company!), building insulation, and packaging out of fungus. And mycelium networks are how trees actually communicate underground, the "wood wide web," passing nutrients and distress signals from tree to tree.

  • Nanobubbles: Molly's own Everybody in the Pool episode on nanobubble technology for water treatment, one of the many things she wants in her city of the future.

  • Richard Scarry's Busytown: The beloved illustrated children's books Molly went to when she talked about a fully reimagined city: microgrids, backyard farms, electric gondolas, and radiant-heated floors included.

Marina Psaros
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Inappropriately Joyous: Climate Games and River Rights with Meghna Jayanth and Joost Vervoort