Before the Inflation Reduction Act became the biggest climate bill in U.S. history, it was just a bunch of policy ideas with long odds. Turning those ideas into law took years of work by people who refused to let it die.

Leah was one of those people, and she wrote a book about it. It's called The Carbon Wave: A Story of Democracy, Parenthood, and the Race to Protect Our Planet, which comes out on September 1st. Leah chronicles the turbulent path of the bill as it veered between breakthrough and collapse — from the hopeful beginnings of the Green New Deal in 2018, to the bill's near-certain defeat at the hands of Senator Joe Manchin, to the surprise passage of the landmark legislation in August 2022. Woven through the political narrative are the personal stories of the activists and staffers who made it happen.

Joining Leah and Katharine are two central figures from the book: Adrian Deveny, former Director of Energy and Environmental Policy for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Sonia Aggarwal, former Special Assistant to the President for Climate Policy, Innovation, and Deployment. We talk about the book, the bill, its legacy, and what's next for federal climate policy.

Resources referenced in this episode

• Pre-order The Carbon Wave
• The Carbon Wave book tour
• Notes from the Electric Era — Leah's Substack
• Bidenomics Was More Successful Than People Think - Leah's op-ed in The Atlantic
• Katharine's book, Climate Wayfinding
• Climate Week live event — NYC, September 21
• Learn more about solar energy in India and how it's delivering coal-like reliability at a lower fixed price

Katharine wrote a book!

It's called Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home, and it's out on May 5th. Through journaling prompts, practical exercises, wisdom from climate leaders, and even art and song, the book takes readers from climate ache to action and from doubt to possibility.

This week on A Matter of Degrees, Leah interviews Katharine on how our grief and fear can become fuel rather than paralysis, how to uncover the superpowers you already have to help heal the planet, and why joy is an essential strategy for staying in this work. And they reckon with a climate movement under duress. Because that's precisely the time to cultivate community, tend the small spaces, and plant seeds for the change ahead.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Pre-order Climate Wayfinding and find additional resources at climatewayfinding.earth — and use code CLIMATE15 at bookshop.org for 15% off plus a limited-edition art print

• Find book tour stops (San Francisco, Twin Cities, Boston, Atlanta, New York, and more) at climatewayfinding.earth/events

Gina McCarthy has been at the center of nearly every federal climate fight of the last two decades. She led the EPA during the Obama years. Then, under President Biden, she became the first ever White House National Climate Advisor.

In this episode of A Matter of Degrees, we sit down with Gina for a sweeping conversation about the victories, the setbacks, and why the climate story is much longer than any single administration. We cover the collapse of the Waxman-Markey Bill, the strange victory of a Clean Power Plan that was stayed before it started, the rollercoaster of getting the Inflation Reduction Act over the finish line, and what it all means now, as we move to defend all of Gina's hard-won progress.