428. The Simple Economics of Saving the ...

Dartmouth president Sian Beilock, a psychologist by training, made her name studying why people choke. Now she’s applying those insights to one of the most scrutinized jobs in America. No pressure! SOURCES: Sian Beilock, president of Dartmouth College. RESOURCES: "Growing share o ... Show More

It’s a hard time to run a university: public trust is low, political pressure is high, and finances are fragile. But Daniel Diermeier, who trained as a political scientist, has Vanderbilt humming. How? He says the key is choosing magnets over wedges. SOURCES: Daniel Diermeier, ch ... Show More

Insurance forms that make no sense. Subscriptions that can’t be cancelled. A never-ending blizzard of automated notifications. In this update of a 2025 episode, Stephen Dubner discovers where all this sludge comes from — and how much it’s costing us. SOURCES: Benjamin Handel, pro ... Show More

<p>Everyone agrees that massive deforestation is an environmental disaster. But most of the standard solutions — scolding the Brazilians, invoking universal morality — ignore the one solution that might actually work. Originally released on <i>Freakonomics Radio</i>, Steve gives ... Show More

The Amazon rainforest is perhaps the world's greatest single environmental asset. For years the accepted wisdom has been that the remorseless tide of destruction there is unstoppable. Justin Rowlatt travels to Brazil to question this conventional account and finds that over the l ... Show More

<p>The economics are clear-cut: the benefits of preserving the lungs of the world <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/03/02/saving-the-rainforests-would-be-a-bargain?utm_campaign=a.io&utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&utm_source=theintelligence&utm_content=discovery.content ... Show More

<p>The Brazilian legislature is currently considering a bill that would legalise the private occupation of some public land in the Amazon region - a move that would most likely lead to further deforestation. But could renewed international pressure from foreign governments and ... Show More

The Amazon is the world's largest rainforest but this crucial carbon sink is facing increased deforestation. Land clearing for mining or agriculture has increased under Brazil's president Jair Bolsanaro. But the world needs the Amazon jungle to keep absorbing carbon if more ambit ... Show More

To solve the climate crisis, we need to make tropical forests worth more alive than dead, says environmental economist Nat Keohane. Highlighting the urgent need to stop deforestation and the carbon pollution it brings, he details the work of the LEAF Coalition -- a first-of-its-k ... Show More

Palm oil is in nearly every commodity you use — food, shampoo, makeup and more — but harvesting this essential material has contributed to the destruction of millions of hectares of forests globally. Sustainability leader Andika Putraditama shares how a groundbreaking collaborati ... Show More

Over the last 40 years, Brazil has lost an area larger than California to deforestation — and 90 percent of the clear-cutting has been illegal, all part of a multi-billion-dollar global environmental crime economy. Civic entrepreneur Ilona Szabó de Carvalho sees this crisis as an ... Show More

A big new push toward nature conservation (and saving the planet) is based on a simple premise: remove humans from the equation and let nature take its own course.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.