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Caitlin Esch

Caitlin Esch

Senior Producer

Caitlin Esch is the senior producer of Marketplace's climate solutions podcast, "How We Survive," and its investigative podcast, "The Uncertain Hour." Caitlin joined Marketplace in 2014. Her work focuses on systemic inequality and the climate crisis. Caitlin's reporting (and the work of the teams she senior produces) have won several accolades, including three awards from the Society of American Business Editors & Writers, a Webby Award, and a New York Festivals Gold Award. The teams' work has been a finalist for the Loeb Awards twice, the Covering Climate Now Awards and the Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE) Awards. Caitlin has a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in journalism from University of California, Berkeley. She lives in Los Angeles.

Latest from Caitlin Esch

  • Nov 10, 2021

    Sci-Fi Intermission

    Author Kim Stanley Robinson, who goes by Stan
    Courtesy: Kim Stanley Robinson

    Saving the planet will require a lot of collaboration and imagination.

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  • Nov 3, 2021

    Gnarly Brine

    Charles Marston said the ILiAD system for extracting lithium from the Salton Sea is his “greatest work.”
    Caitlin Esch/Marketplace

    Our journey through the California desert continues. There’s a lot of hope — and millions of dollars — riding on lithium extraction in the Salton Sea. But how close are those dreams to reality?

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  • Oct 27, 2021

    The Resource

    The Audubon Society's Frank Ruiz shows Molly Wood the dried up playa of the Salton Sea. Ruiz hopes a lithium boom could drive an economic — and ecological — recovery.
    Caitlin Esch/Marketplace

    Welcome to California’s Salton Sea, a dying region that might recover thanks to the lithium in the brine bubbling deep underground.

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  • Oct 20, 2021

    Electrify Everything

    A woman looks over damage to a neighborhood caused by Hurricane Ida on August 30, 2021 in Kenner, Louisiana.
    Scott Olson/Getty Images

    Welcome to the climate crisis, where saving lives might mean turning every building into a Tesla.

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  • Oct 13, 2021

    The Necessary Evil

    A view of the SSR Marigold gold mine in Valmy, Nevada.
    Hayley Hershman/Marketplace

    Mining is a complicated business. It’s destructive, it’s dangerous, but it’s also the reason that our modern world exists. Is there a better way?

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  • Oct 6, 2021

    White Gold

    Daranda Hinkey holds some pieces of clay containing lithium, or “white gold,” that could be key to a decarbonized future.
    Molly Wood/Marketplace

    To get off fossil fuels, you need a lot of batteries. To get a lot of batteries, you need to mine a lot of lithium. Welcome to Thacker Pass, Nevada, where a proposed lithium mine has sparked protests.

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  • Aug 20, 2021

    25 years after welfare reform, let’s revisit “the magic bureaucrat”

    Former Director of the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services Larry Townsend.
    Gina Delvac/Marketplace

    A lot has changed since the 1996 law to “end welfare as we know it.” In this reprise, we’ll explore the origins of the welfare-to-work movement.

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  • Mar 24, 2021

    My boss is an app

    Julia Soler loads up her minivan with groceries before her shift doing gig work with Amazon Flex.
    Stephanie Hughes/Marketplace

    The gig-app workforce has arrived at our doorstep. But Silicon Valley’s innovations in hiring are only the latest round of this long-running battle over what “employment” means in the American economy.

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  • Mar 17, 2021

    Inside baseball

    Anthony Shew (right) fist bumps fellow pitcher Adam Wainwright while playing for the minor league Springfield Cardinals. As a minor league player, Shew isn't subject to federal minimum wage and overtime requirements.
    Courtesy: Anthony Shew

    In minor league baseball, athletes train, suit up and play for wages that would be illegal in most sectors.

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  • Mar 10, 2021

    Big Boss, Little Boss

    Crowds of people stand in the street, waiting to identify bodies of immigrant workers following the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in New York City, March 25, 1911.
    Hulton Archive/Getty Images

    After Jimmy Nicks’ job was subcontracted, he took both companies to court — the subcontractor he worked for, the “little boss,” and its client, the “big boss,” Koch Foods.

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