Before Maeve and Mary’s new podcast series can truly begin, Maeve’s got a confession to make; she doesn’t really, properly, understand what the Paris Climate Agreement actually is.   Luckily her co-host, the former Irish President, is more than happy to take her to school.   Let Maeve’s pain be your gain in this punchy Paris primer...

Subscribe at mothersofinvention.online and follow the series on all social media using @mothersinvent to find out more, support the women in the series and get your hands on bonus material throughout the season.

What the Actual Paris?!

Mary and Maeve are laying down the law.   Two years ago, 886 ordinary Dutch citizens sued their government over climate change.. and won.  Tessa Khan, a Bangladeshi-Australian lawyer is in the studio to talk new legal strategies for climate action.  Her and her partners are helping to sue not one, but six governments around the world for failing to protect their citizens and across the US, it’s the next generation who are rising to take Trump to court.



EPISODE NOTES: 

This week’s Mothers of Invention are:

Tessa Khan (Australia)
International human rights lawyer helping citizens take their governments to court over climate change. 

Marjan Minnesma  (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Director of Urgenda, Driving force behind the world's first climate liability lawsuit, and its historic victory. 

Our Children’s Trust Plaintiffs  (USA, India and across the world)
Kelsey Juliana, Victoria Barrett and Ridhima Pandey: young people suing their governments to protect their future. 

More at mothersofinvention.online
Follow the series on all social media using @mothersinvent to find out more, support the women in the series and get your hands on bonus material throughout the season. 

EPISODE WEBPAGE: mothersofinvention.online/allrise

Episode 1: All Rise

This episode explores the impact of climate change on public health, traversing political, scientific, radical and spiritual realms with our Mothers of Invention. 

Mary and Maeve learn how all of our access to the very basics - clean air, clean water, livable temperatures - are at risk as well as the mental health implications of the destruction of the natural world. We meet a Black Lives Matter activist who believes that black neighbourhoods would be safer with less police and more trees. We speak to Siwatu Salama-Ra, a prolific environmental justice campaigner currently incarcerated in Detroit, Michigan and we spend time with a Traditional Custodian of the Fitzroy river in western Australia, currently at risk from fracking and industrial developments to consider our spiritual connection with nature.


EPISODE NOTES: 
This week’s mothers of Invention are:


Stella Hartinger - Lima, Peru
Doctor and researcher exploring the global health impacts of climate change and fossil fuel pollution. Contributor to the Lancet Countdown report.
lancetcountdown.org/the-report/

Sarra Tekola - Phoenix, Arizona
Black Lives Matter activist, scientist and academic working on a PhD in Sustainability at Arizona State University. Co-founder of Women of Color Speak Out.
@wocspeakout

Siwatu Salama-Ra - Detroit, Michigan
Climate justice activist. Co-Director of the East Michigan Environmental Action Council, building community power through environmental justice education, youth development, and collaborative relationship building. Learn about the campaign to free her from prison at  freesiwatu.org

Anne Poehlina - Kimberley, Western Australia
Nyikina Warrwa Traditional Custodian and academic working to promote new economy opportunities and green collar jobs for Indigenous people.
http://majala.com.au


News clip from Democracy Now! Amy Goodman: On This Earth Day, Demand Freedom for Siwatu-Salama Ra
Radio news clip, story from Sarah Cwiek on Michigan Radio (NPR) 

EPISODE WEBPAGE: mothersofinvention.online/undertheweather

Episode 4 Under the Weather

In our first episode back, Mary & Maeve recap the groundbreaking climate events of 2018. They meet our youngest mother yet, 13 year old activist and organizer, Alexandria Villasenor, on why she’s spending every Friday in a sleeping bag at the gates of the UN. Professor Pauline Dube talks to us about co-authoring the IPCC Special Report 1.5, and how she’s countering its rejection at COP24. Mbororo indigenous leader Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim speaks from the World Economic Forum in Davos on how the best way to rebalance our relationship with nature is not artificial intelligence, but indigenous intelligence.

S2 Ep 1: Nothing Happens Unless You Press the Button

This week’s episode is co-hosted by Rhiana Gunn-Wright, one of the lead policy writers of the Green New Deal. She joins Mary & Maeve in the studio to discuss public opinion on climate change in the United States. In a moment in history when its politics are so polarized, will climate justice be the great unifier?

S2: Ep 2 - Ghosting the planet

Co-hosting our episode this week is Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a lifelong ocean conservationist who creates solutions with social justice in mind. Ayana, Mary & Maeve take a wade through the work our oceans have been doing while we’ve been sleeping.

Mothers of Invention

S2 - Ep 3 - Fish Out of Hot Water

A new green economy presents us with a second chance at making good with both the earth and our communities. What will it take to transition to renewable energy, and what can we learn from indigenous peoples and new technology to get it done?

S2 - Ep 4 - A second chance at life

The Arctic and it’s melting glaciers are the first images to mind when we think about climate change. But what do we know about the four million indigenous people living in the Arctic who have been fighting back against both human invasions and shifts in climate? Dalee Sambo Dorough, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, guest hosts this week episode with Mary & Maeve, from Anchorage, Alaska.

S2 - Ep 7 - Lungs of the North

Taking into account Uber and Lyft there's now around 60,000 cabs in New York City — but Maeve thinks she's found the very best of them, who's on a mission to effect change while on the move...

S1: The Greatest Taxi Driver in New York

It’s mad, sad, exhausting and unfair. So what do we fight for and how do we get there? Climate justice is racial justice is gender justice. That’s how.

Mothers of Invention is back! And this year, Mary, Maeve & Thimali are (kinda) reunited for a season to remember. From their home studios in Dublin & New York, Season 3 unfolds an unparalleled line-up of Mothers from every continent on the globe. 

This season, Mothers of Invention explores the most critical climate issues of our time - reparations, immigration, agriculture, biodiversity, new economics and more! Together they rethink the value systems we’re getting ready to leave behind, and with care and compassion, reimagine a future that includes us all. 

The climate crisis is a man-made problem with a feminist solution! And we’re not backing down!

Season 3 Trailer - We’re Back! And We’re Not Backing Down!

We moved heaven, Earth and Covid, and we are back! But with too many emergencies stacking up, and no way to press pause on the climate crisis, how do we cope? How do we visualize what happens next? Daiara Tukano is from a Northern Amazon indigenous community in Brazil. She describes her Covid experience and identifies the opportunities to review global health. And co-executive director of the Green New Deal UK, Fatima-Zahra Ibrahim tells us more about her new project, Build Back Better.

S3 EP1 - We Are Really Big Huggers

Ever wanted to write a letter or email to rage and complain to the Powers That Be, but found yourself lost after “Hey. You.”?  Yeah, us too. But take a deep breath and join Maeve and Thimali as they figure out how to put pen to paper for the climate crisis. From who to write to and how to build your argument, to which edible treats to include - we’ve got you covered. And there’s some top advice from our very own Mary Robinson. Now - quills at the ready you bards of beauty, it’s letter time.

Dear Ruler: Letter Writing Tips for Exasperated Voters

The IPCC uses the Industrial Revolution as the keystone for human-induced climate change, but there is a different marker for black, brown and indigenous peoples who have also been measuring climate change. How can the colonial impact on their homes be quantified, argued and repaid? Archaeologist Kristina Douglass talks about colonization and climate in Madagascar. And Lidy Nacpil, of the Asian People’s Movement on Debt & Development shares her fight for reparations on the global stage.

S3 Ep2 - Million Dollar Questions

This late into the climate crisis, it’s now time for us to embrace adaptation as a solution, as communities reconsider the fight for their ancestral homes. We welcome Mary’s friend, Ursula Rakova, executive director of Tulele Peisa on the Carteret Islands, who is helping almost its entire population migrate to safe land. And Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, Colette Pichon-Battle of Louisiana, USA who unpacks her work amongst local communities in the Bayou.

S3 - Ep3: Universal Language

We learned in our last episode that food insecurity will cause huge swathes of climate migration by the end of the century. So are there ways large-scale farms could nurture our soil? What could small-scale farming do to bring justice to marginalized communities? This week, Mary, Maeve & Thimali meet Zoraida Calle in Colombia, and Vivien Sansour in Palestine as they learn how to breathe new life into dead land, and bring hope back to damaged communities.

S3 - Ep 4: We are the People of the Beans

Taking your government to court over their climate impact is a fast-growing phenomenon that’s seeing powerful change. Individuals and organisations all over the world are setting new precedents and holding governments to account. But it’s not exactly a walk in the park! So how do you get it done? Well luckily Tessa Khan, human rights lawyer, co-founder of the Climate Litigation Network and Season 1 Mother of Invention, is on hand to explain to Maeve Higgins how it’s done!

S3 - Minisode 4: How to Sue Your Country

We sometimes forget that the most sophisticated carbon sequestration infrastructures in the world are thousands of years old! Reforestation may reduce fossil fuel emissions, but replanting monocultures won’t solve the problem. Our ecosystems are ancient, complex and not easily replaced. What are some of the oldest and newest techniques around for protecting and regenerating our planet’s biodiversity? Mary, Maeve & Thimali talk to Mina Susana Setra and Jane Zelikova in this week’s episode!

S3 - Ep 5: Microbial Magic

Keep having climate chats with your family that end in eye rolls, clenched or lost teeth? Well in this week's minisode, Maeve & Thimali talk to two youth activists from The CLEO Institute in Florida, our friends Gabi Rodriguez & Nicole Gazo. They're on a mission to awaken our parents’ inner climate warrior. From deflecting confrontation and forging connection, to active listening and using stats the right way, we learn how to bridge the generational gap, and transform bickering into brainstorming!

S3 - Minisode 5: Oh My God, Mom

Extractive capitalism has caused so much destruction to our planet. So with all we've learnt this season, how can we rethink the value of natural resources, and the people who work hard to bring them from the land to our homes? And how does it contribute to our new visions and value systems for a regenerative future? Could 'climate justice for all' in fact be in our reach? In this episode we talk to Bina Agarwal in Delhi & Omar Freilla in the South Bronx about the power of going local.

S3 - Ep 6: The Very Nature of Ownership

Thimali engages in a little self-care with her friend, climate essayist and co-host of Hot Take podcast, Mary Annaïse Heglar. Strolling through a New York City forest, they share good and bad experiences being of colour in nature, but have a chance encounter that helps them connect back to the land..

S3 - Minisode 6: The Meeting Circle

The climate crisis has made our young people a marginalized group. But the youth climate movement is being led by no ordinary generation. They are passionate, educated and organized. In our season finale, six days before the US election, Mary, Maeve & Thimali recognize the importance of these critical perspectives from global North and global South youth. In an unprecedented episode, we learn about their hopes, their fears, their ambitions, and their strategies and visions for the future.

S3 - Ep 7: We May Be Small But Our Impact Is Huge

The only way to create the future is to imagine it first. In our final release of Season Three, Mary, Maeve & Thimali explore regenerative futures for all on the other side of a very special US election.

S3 - Minisode 7: Brave Enough To Imagine

Are you new to climate justice and want to learn more? Looking to get involved in the movement and not sure where to start? Mary, Maeve & Thimali have the rundown on what you need to get going.

S3 - How To Listen To Mothers Of Invention

In an extra special live edition of Mothers Of Invention, US Senator Bernie Sanders and Mary meet for the first time! Moderated by Thimali, they discuss reentering the Paris Agreement, reimagining global governance and planned migration. With help from our guest Mother, Sacajawea Hall of Cooperation Jackson, we learn what justice looks like when led by communities most affected by social, economic and racial inequity. Recorded at I.NY Festival in partnership with I.NY and The Sanders Institute.

Mothers of Invention

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