Nick Halla has had a wild arc—from his upbringing on a small dairy farm in Minnesota to becoming employee #1 at Impossible Foods, where he helped turn “meat from plants” into a mainstream, climate-first movement and scaled the company from little more than an idea to a global brand reshaping how we eat. In this episode, Nick discusses ditching his safe career path in big food and energy, betting it all on a radical new way to make meat, navigating the hype and turbulence of the alternative protein boom, and why he now sees “climate” not as an industry but as a design constraint for every business he helps build through GigaClimate, his current venture. It’s a story about serendipity, stubborn optimism, and what it really takes to bend entire systems toward a livable future.

Notes and resources

* Nick Halla’s LinkedIn

* GigaClimate

* Impossible Foods

* Climate Swings Substack

About this episode

Duncan Logan is a Scottish “farm kid” who walked away from a 6,000-acre fruit and veg operation, crashed into the adrenaline of London derivatives trading, and reinvented himself as the founder of RocketSpace, the launchpad that quietly incubated Uber, Spotify, Flexport, and more. In this episode, we trace his swings from battling the National Association of Realtors over a radical real-estate play, to expanding startup hubs into China just as the political winds shifted, to shutting down RocketSpace and starting over with 9Zero, his bid to build the “rails” for climate entrepreneurship and a physical, human-scale Silicon Valley for climate. Along the way, Duncan opens up about regret, risk, compounding, mentorship, political backlash, second careers, and why he believes every company will ultimately become a climate company.

Notes and resources

* Duncan Logan’s LinkedIn

* 9Zero

* Climate Swings Substack

Tim Gray is one of Canada’s most seasoned, quietly formidable forces in conservation and climate action. He’s spent decades in the trenches—from getting arrested at an environmental protest in Northern Ontario to policy backrooms where evidence becomes law—and has built a career translating science into power, confronting entrenched interests, and evolving traditional conservation into a relentless push for deep climate mitigation. This conversation traces the arc of his impact career, from acid-rain fieldwork and old-growth forest fights to shaping modern climate policy and steering Canada through the turbulence of the global energy transition. Now, as executive director of Environmental Defence, Tim is a model for what commitment looks like when it spans a lifetime—and how conservation becomes climate action at scale.

Notes and resources

* Tim Gray’s LinkedIn

* Environmental Defence Canada

* Climate Swings Substack

What if we could swap fear for courage as the key driver of the climate movement? Jenny Morgan, former business operations program manager at Microsoft and author of Cancel Culture in Climate, joins Climate Swings for a raw and wide-ranging conversation about the future of climate communication and advocacy. From designing inclusive experiences at Microsoft and championing B Corp values to confronting silence at COP26 and calling for empathy in an acrimonious era, Jenny unpacks how we can replace shame with curiosity, apprehension with dialogue, and paralysis with progress.

Notes and resources

* Jenny Morgan’s LinkedIn

* Cancel Culture in Climate

* Climate Swings Substack

Neelambaree Prasad grew up in Mumbai the daughter of a mathematician and a nuclear scientist. She later became both a pharmacologist and a practitioner of traditional Indian dance. For sixteen years she built a corporate career in biotech and pharma, until the pandemic—and motherhood—cracked something open. What began as a restless question about purpose turned into ClimArts, a global collective weaving climate science with performance and storytelling, from stand-up comedy in Jakarta to ballet about coral reefs in Madagascar. In this conversation, Neelambaree talks about how art can illuminate evidence, how purpose can evolve, and how imagination might just be climate’s most renewable resource.

Notes and resources

* Neelambaree Prasad’s LinkedIn

* ClimArts

* Climate Swings interview with Kamal Kapadia

* Climate Swings Substack

In this special crossover episode, we flip the mic: I sit down in the guest chair for a heart-to-heart with Jae Canetti of Terra.talk, the official podcast of Terra.do. Together we dive into the strange, sprawling world of climate communications—from my early days in global media (Global Times, Reuters, The Economist Group), to launching Word Clouds, my climate communications consultancy, to my reflections on how AI, authenticity, and attention economics are reshaping storytelling. The conversation ping-pongs from greenwashing and the economics of journalism to the human pulse behind good communications, the rise of curated communities over clickbait, and that infamous 2020 “Orange Sky Day” that pushed me fully into climate work. It’s a lively, meta, and sometimes philosophical tour through why we talk about climate the way we do—and why it still matters to keep talking.

Notes and resources

* Michael Gold’s LinkedIn

* Climate Swings homepage

* Climate Swings Substack

From scaling an AI startup before it was cool, to negotiating international trade deals, to building Canada’s first blue innovation cluster from a literal garden by the sea, Amelie Desrochers’ journey is anything but linear. In this episode, she traces the unlikely path that led her from Silicon Valley’s tech bubble and diplomatic corridors to the beating heart of the ocean economy. Now principal for blue economy and maritime sustainability at Cleantech Group, Amelie’s work represents the culmination of her search for meaning at the intersection of innovation, diplomacy, and nature—a place where technology meets tides, and purpose truly finds its depth.

Notes and resources

* Amelie Desrochers’ LinkedIn

* Cleantech Group

* Climate Swings Substack

When it comes to addressing climate change, sometimes it’s the “unworkable” ideas that are the ones we need the most. This episode features technologist-turned-sea-level-rise-provocateur Russ Walsh, who unpacks his audacious “SeaNet”: a globe-spanning lattice of canals and inland seas that would siphon ocean water inland and buy coastal cities time. Many will scoff—it’s too big, too messy, too hard. But with tides already licking at doorsteps and whole nations on the line, dismissing bold thinking is the riskiest move of all. Come for the skepticism; stay for the math, the engineering, and the unexpected upside (“blue gold”) that could turn adaptation into opportunity. If the water’s rising either way, shouldn’t we at least hear Russ out?

Notes and resources

* Russ Walsh’s LinkedIn

* Climate Swings episode with Janelle Kellman, former mayor, city of Sausalito

* Climate Swings Substack