Project Good Podcast

Host Annmarie Hylton introduces the Project Good Podcast’s September focus on climate change solutions, citing NOAA data that July 2026 was the hottest month recorded in the U.S. and outlining key drivers such as heat domes, human-caused climate change, warm oceans, humidity, and El Niño. She interviews Joshua Harrison, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Leaf Island, about his lifelong engagement with environmental issues, including early activism around solar energy and a multidisciplinary background in ecological art. Harrison argues for systems thinking, nature-based solutions like urban greening, and long-term “seven generations” decision-making, emphasizing reconnecting people—especially youth—to hands-on climate action. He explains Leaf Island’s concept of restoring city “leaf cover” to cool urban environments and discusses repurposing styrofoam into lightweight, high-performing growing media for scalable green infrastructure.

00:00 Welcome to Project Good
01:11 Meet Joshua Harrison
03:25 Early Climate Awakening
07:17 Art Meets Systems Thinking
13:06 Nature as Climate Tech
18:29 Reconnecting People to Nature
25:24 2030 Tipping Point
31:00 Politics Values and Power
40:15 Indigenous Science and Fire
45:47 Leaf Island Origin Story
48:41 Turning Waste into Soil
55:13 Hope and Youth Agency
01:01:52 Closing and Resources

Joshua Harrison the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Leaf Island, an award-winning green infrastructure company based in New York. He also serves as Director of the Center for the Study of the Force Majeure at UC Santa Cruz. For over three decades, Joshua has worked at the intersection of art, ecology, and systems strategy — from designing immersive installations on ocean collapse to building regenerative models for wildfire impacted landscapes in the American West. His current focus: transforming cities into functioning ecosystems using modular, scalable technologies — starting with rooftops, walls, streets, and coastlines is reshaping how we move forward with this crisis.