Ethan Brown

Ethan Brown is a 24-year-old writer, commentator, entrepreneur, and the Founder and Host of The Sweaty Penguin, an award-winning comedy climate program presented by PBS/WNET's national multiplatform climate initiative Peril and Promise aimed at making climate change less overwhelming, less politicized, and more fun.

Ethan’s love of climate journalism stems from his belief that climate doom, climate denial, and climate indifference are all rooted in the exact same emotions of fear, anxiety, and guilt. 69% of Gen Z social media users report feeling anxious after viewing climate content, and studies show these negative emotions actually lead people to disengage from the issue. That’s why all of Ethan’s writing takes a different approach: one that cuts through the doom-and-gloom and incorporates solutions, critical thinking, and — depending on the context — humor.

Finding himself with some free time during quarantine, Ethan launched The Sweaty Penguin Podcast, and what he expected to be a fun quarantine hobby turned into a real thing. Since its launch in April 2020, The Sweaty Penguin has released over 220 episodes, amassed over 54,000 downloads, and interviewed experts from 18 countries and 6 continents. Two-thirds of listeners are under age 34. In 2022, The Sweaty Penguin won Official Honors at the Webby Awards and a Listener’s Choice Award at the Signal Awards. The Sweaty Penguin added another Listener’s Choice Award and a Gold Award at the Signal Awards in 2023.

The Sweaty Penguin has also received two grants from the Solutions Journalism Network — one as part of their Business & Sustainability Initiative ($5K), and one as part of their inaugural Climate Beacon Newsroom Initiative ($20K). Boston University has also awarded The Sweaty Penguin several grants, most notably including a $20K prize for finishing in first place in Innovate@BU’s 2023 New Venture Competition. In Spring 2023, the University of Kansas also launched GEOG300: Geographic Adventures in Climate Change, where instead of reading a textbook, students listened to episodes of The Sweaty Penguin for homework and discussed them in class. The class was extremely popular, and is now in its second rendition in Spring 2024.

Personally, Ethan’s climate writing has been published in news outlets such as Newsweek, The Hill, and The Orange County Register. Ethan is a frequent guest on television, radio, and podcasts, and has become a trusted climate expert for left-wing shows, right-wing shows, and everything in between, routinely cultivating bipartisan common ground through his nuanced, optimistic commentary. He has appeared on over 80 programs including Scripps News, CBN’s The Global Lane, and The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe. He was also invited as the youngest member of the Jerusalem Press Club’s 2023 Climate Innovation Press Tour.

Graduating college into a global pandemic forced Ethan to take the path less traveled as he pursued a career in climate journalism. Fortunately, he’s created opportunities for himself (and others) throughout his life. From ages 10-15, Ethan loved math, and performed a mental math stage show at venues around the world, established a world record by memorizing and reciting 2,012 digits of tau (2*pi) in 2012, published a peer-reviewed academic paper on magic squares, and won episode 6 of the FOX competition show SuperHuman. In college, he wanted to write for a school satire publication, so grew Boston University’s publication, The Bunion, from just himself to a 90-person team over his two years as Editor in Chief, earning him the Student Activities Office’s Outstanding Member of the Year Award in 2019.

Creating a career in climate journalism from scratch was much more daunting than pursuing a childhood interest or nonexistent extracurricular activity, but that hasn’t stopped Ethan. Ethan’s passion for climate journalism drove him to keep The Sweaty Penguin podcast alive for nearly four years, supporting himself through part-time jobs and often drawing on personal savings to sustain his team and continue his work.

Unfortunately, after PBS’s Peril and Promise initiative lost funding, The Sweaty Penguin became financially untenable. But Ethan hopes this will open up a new chapter. It is no secret to anyone who knows Ethan that he would much prefer to focus on journalism 24/7, rather than spending all his time on fundraising and team management. He is really hopeful for an opportunity to bring his experience, passion, and existing young, bipartisan audience to a newsroom that is looking for a young, hardworking beat reporter.