ClimateGenn hosted by Nick Breeze: Recent Episodes
Nick Breeze
Interviews with environmental / climate change experts discussing the choices we collectively face in determining what future we will shape for ourselves, future generations, and all other life within the biosphere.
The podcast is produced by Nick Breeze - find out more at https://genn.cc + https://patreon.com/genncc
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Thank you, Nick Breeze ClimateGenn
In this first published ClimateGenn episode for a couple of months, I want to thank subscribers for your patience. I have not been sitting idle but much more trying to digest the appalling consequences of climate heating that we are now experiencing.
[Order COPOUT By Nick Breeze here]
Everyday on social media, climate graphs and charts are posted with varying degrees of deep red and other markers of urgency. Yet, nothing happens except the posts become more shrill and the problem of climate disaster becomes more irreversible.
As someone who engages a lot with climate science and scientists, somehow I had fallen into a space whereby the actual meaning of these charts had become abstract. Codified and filed away in my mind to avoid real exposure to true meaning.
Then something happened. I arranged to meet with Guillermo Díaz Agras at the marine biology research station in La Grana in Galicia. The research station is a satellite of Santiago University and the team here conduct extensive research along the coast and in the river valley’s, called rias.
What I expected to be an introductory overview of the research station turned into a horrifying cerebral experience; an awakening if you like.
Guillermo showed me a long stream of images of dead dolphins, turtles and otters, saying simply: ‘That was just last week!’. He then explained how much of the indigenous shellfish are dying. The mussels no longer forming in this stretch of coast, the seaweed that bound the mussels to the rocks and the floating platforms, no longer there. The ecosystems that were embedded within them, gone.
In 2022, 220 dolphins were found dead along this coast. In 2023 that number rose to 667. In 2024 we are already over 315 as of last week.
He then explained that the Atlantic Ocean heatwave that we see in those charts plastered all over the internet is triggering a massive breakdown of marine ecosystems along this coastline. The heated ocean creates more evaporation which is driving the most incredible downpours of rain. This in turn is desalinating the local waters and making life impossible for many species. The northerly winds that are well known here and blow the warmer surface waters out to sea, have stopped. The acidity of the ocean water from constant burning of fossil fuels is stopping shell formation too.
This is what is meant when scientists speak of a cascade of climate impacts. The Atlantic Ocean heatwave is the main driver of this catastrophic cascade.
But this ecosystem is deeply connected to the Galician way off life, their cultural identity and local economies. Last week, with Guillermo, I met with the head of the regional fishing group. The impacts that I have mentioned are now creating a zombie-like industry. Fishermen here used to work the whole year through, everyday. Now they work around 15 days per year and receive subsidies from the government.
The lack of life in the oceans due to the ocean heating mean that new species are being shipped in from more exotic parts of the world where they can survive the hotter waters. These species take 3 years to mature and then have to be reordered. Aside from the unknown unknowns regarding dumping foreign species into these waters, the shellfish have to be reordered. However, as this happening along the coast in different communities, demand is outstripping supply. The government are funding the 3 yearly purchase of the new stock but not the ability to breed.
Guillermo is nervous that the imported, and essentially invasive species, may have unforeseen deleterious consequences for the wider ecosystem. However, everything is dying anyway. When I asked him what he thinks we should do, he shakes his head and says, “it is too late!”
These very words are stating very clearly that it is too late to save nature. We are part of nature and intricately connected to its bounty. Just recently The Guardian newspaper blindly published an article praising Galicia for its super healthy seafood diet. There is no reference in the article to the crashing seafood stocks. The article is as blind in its fantasy of long life and abundant seafood as it is perpetuating cliches and myths about the Earth we are destroying. In a moment I will play the interview I recorded with Guillermo giving the overview of the situation along this coast.
I am resuming the podcast series and will be publishing more material on this specific issue. There is also a lot of material I have recorded on geoengineering that I will publish in the subscribers areas for Water level members. It will be edited for use at a later point.
This has been an intense period of work and there is much more to do.
My book COPOUT is available to order in the US and Canada from 21st May. COPOUT explains how we got into this mess. The thirty years of complete political failure to change humanity’s course. I am now working on a second book that is looking at the consequences of failure and although it may sound harrowing, we have to keep in mind that it is just reality and that life will go on, until it doesn’t. We have a collective duty to do what we can to sustain and where possible restore the damages our species has created.
Thank you too all subscribers and supporters. Please do get in touch or leave comments. I do try to respond to as much as possible.
In this episode I am speaking with three young people from the Cayman Islands about the existential climate threat they face. They are taking their case to the British Government to ask for assistance in what could eventually lead to an evacuation plan.
The Cayman Islands are a British Overseas Territory lying to the south of Cuba and the North East of Honduras. Currently an estimated 85% of the worlds hedge funds are located in these islands.
The irony is that a significant percentage of the funds flowing through the Cayman isles will be invested in or derived from fossil fuels - the very cause of the regional climate destabilisation that is getting much worse.
Aleigha, Rickeem and Connor from Sustainable Cayman all have a case to make to the British people that could end up being part of the transformational change we need immediately.
The London meeting at the House of Commons with MPs is in collaboration with OnePlanet in the UK and is the start of a dialogue that aims to encourage the UK to act responsible in the face of existential threats to these islands.
Thank you to all subscribers for support. This is a special episode timed for the event I nLondon and more episodes will be forthcoming. Please like and share and continue to subscribe to support this work.
You can also order my book COPOUT from Amazon or any other book store, which highlights the structural failures that are driving the worsening worldwide climate emergency.
This episode with Dana R fisher is the unofficial part 2 of 3 looking at the sociological side of collective action, while we try to slow the sinking of the Titanic, to make homes on the lifeboats.
The rub in all this is that Dana’s message is not dissimilar from Roger Hallam’s (unofficial part 1). She agrees that millions will likely die before the so-called Anthroshift kicks in and we get the cascade of structural policies we need to respond en masse to the crisis.
The detail in all we discuss is in Dana’s new book, ‘Saving Ourselves - From Climate Shocks To Climate Action’.
If you want a close up lens on the structural failures to date, coupled with the determination of those in power to ignore the loud and clear science, then please do consider buying my book COPOUT. I’ve had great feedback from climate luminaries such as Sir David King, Bill McKibben, Alice Hill, Rupert Read, and others.
Thank you to all subscribers for your support. It is greatly received as it allows this series to continue. I get so many requests for interviews and it is getting harder to keep up. More supporters means more interviews can bet processed. Thanks again.
In this ClimateGenn Episode I speak with Dr René van Westen about the recent research he published with colleagues looking at what it would take to cause the Atlantic Meridonial Overturning Circulation (AMOC) to pass through it’s tipping point.Interpretations of this research have been published in media around the world and debated across social media. Here René gets a chance to clarify the potential for catastrophic impacts that would indiscriminately devastate Europe as well as many other regions in proximity to the Atlantic and beyond.If you want to read about how governments have consistently lied to get us into this mess then make sure you order my book COPOUT from this link: https://amzn.to/3uzuH7yIn the next episode will be Dana R Fisher discussing her new book, Saving Ourselves, and what it will take to create the ‘Antroshift’ or social tipping point to change course for the better. If the collapsing AMOC is the answer - I will pass on that!!Thank you to all subscribers - your support is always welcome. Extra episodes and episode previews will continue to be forthcoming.There is a huge influx of requests for interviews and climate/ecological stories out there to cover and I am totally overwhelmed. Thanks again for interest, feedback and support.
In this ClimateGenn episode I speak with Dr Chris Kettle. Chris is Principal Scientist within the International organization Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT, one of the global CGIAR centers for Agricultural research for development. Chris leads their work globally on restoration and the role of trees in transitioning food systems. This is a critically important episode and Chris really dives into the complex interconnectivity between forestry, biodiversity, climate, food systems security, knowledge and so much more. Links to additional work & resources related to Dr Chris Kettle:www.myfarmtrees.orgwww.diversityforrestoration.orgYou can also look at the institutional webites https://alliancebioversityciat.org/And the https://www.cgiar.org/Chris is leading the restoration component of the naturepositive Initiativehttps://www.cgiar.org/news-events/news/africa-climate-summit-advanced-tree-restoration-pledges-but-a-big-seed-shortage-remains/This recent FAO publication led by Dr Chris Kettle: https://www.fao.org/3/cc8955en/cc8955en.pdfYou can find all Chris's publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8ViBluIAAAAJ&hl=enActioning the knowledge we already possess in the science and indigenous communities, while taking a global instead of national perspective, has the potential to radically improve our prospects. This is the real challenge that we face today. Chris offers a wealth of information on both the status quo and the potential for righting the wrongs of the past to fight back and try to conserve and regenerate global forests, while supplying the worlds food at the same time.In the next episode I speak to Honduran youth activist Ricardo Pineda who I heard speaking at COP28. It is a fascinating conversation that touches on justice issues and why he is now calling for research in climate interventions that could possibly save lives in his community. I am also just about to edit the interview with sociologist Dana R Fisher about her new book, ‘Saving Ourselves, from climate shocks to climate action’. This is an unofficial sequel to the interview with Roger Hallam. There are parallel lines that we all need to comprehend. Thank you to all supporters and subscribers. I am recording a lots of interviews at the moment and I appreciate all feedback, good and bad. PREORDER COPOUT: https://amzn.to/3SqI4iiIf you want to gain more insight into how these issues all connect together and actually fail at the political and structural level, then please do order my book COPOUT. It is available to order on Amazon and from a wide range of bookstores worldwide.
In this ClimateGenn episode I am speaking with Nigerian Climate Activist Dickson Goodness about the ongoing struggle to pressure the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, to clean up it’s colossal toxic mess left behind after nearly seven decades of oil extraction in the Niger Delta. Beyond carbon emission, the damage done has destroyed ecosystems, decimated biodiversity, ruined livelihoods and caused misery and suffering for communities living in the region.PREORDER COPOUT - https://amzn.to/3SflYzgA reminder that you can preorder my book COPOUT about the UN process that has now been taken over by the extractive fossil fuel industry. A broad coalition of the most polluting nations on Earth say they want to reduce emissions while massively expanding fossil fuel production. This contradiction or outright hypocrisy underpins the very core of the human struggle for survival this century and will be discussed across future episodes in the coming weeks. Please do stay tuned.Thank you to all subscribers and supporters. Please do join via Patron or Youtube to support the channel, getting episodes early, plus extra content. Do also comment, share and engage in whatever way possible. Thanks.
In this ClimateGenn episode I speak with Roger Hallam, original cofounder of Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and other socially focussed organisations. He also hosts the ‘Designing The Revolution’ podcast. Roger’s communication style is often confrontational and very direct. In this interview Roger discusses where he thinks we are now and the complex sociological processes at work that will determine the future.Moving into 2024 we are faced with the reality that the largest fossil fuel producers are expanding production around the world, demonstrating disregard for all the scientific warnings and broken-promises that litter the decades since the 1970’s, regarding over consumption and carbon pollution.PREORDER 'COPOUT - HOW GOVERNMENTS HAVE FAILED THE CLIMATE'By Nick Breeze - https://amzn.to/3U2EwFtThe COP process of the last eight years from Paris to Dubai is documented in my book COPOUT which is available to preorder on Amazon now. Endorsements from key people involved in confronting climate & ecological issues are included in the notes.This year I will be focussing on speaking with people who articulate the myriad pathways forward from the social, political, natural and technological options - and their inevitable pitfalls. The objective is to see what we can learn and improve our chances for a better outcome than what we currently face.Thank you for all supporters who make this series possible. Please do subscribe, share the episodes or do whatever you can to be part of the conversation.Praise for COPOUT:‘COPOUT is required reading for anyone trusting on global action by governments to solve the planet’s climate crisis.’Dr Alice Hill, former special assistant to President Barack Obama and senior director for resilience policy at the National Security Council.‘A must-read for all of us who care about and work for a manageable future for humanity and the ecosystems that we depend on’Sir David King - Former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government.'COPOUT gives a very strong sense of what the stakes are, in the climate struggle and shows the urgent need for other nimbler ways forward as we finally face up to the existential threat now upon us’Emeritus Professor Rupert Read, author of Why Climate Breakdown Matters and Co-Director of the Climate Majority Project‘This is just what we need!’Professor Hugh Hunt, Director of Centre for Climate Repair at University of Cambridge
In this climategenn episode bulletin, I speak with Dr Jennifer Francis about her new work looking at Weather Whiplash Events that she and colleagues have been studying in the N Atlantic and Europe. We also discuss the outlook for 2024 as climate impacts worsen and world leaders from across the world are doubling down on expanding the root cause of the problem: fossil fuels. If you want to find out more about the failing COP process and why we urgently need to hold those delaying structural change directly accountable my book COPOUT is available to preorder on Amazon or another bookstore.Thanks for supporting the podcast. I will be resuming interviews gain next week and fully appreciate your support.
Lord Martin Rees, UK Astronomer Royal and former president of the Royal Society discusses his new book, If Science Is To Save Us.
We discuss the myriad risks being faced by humanity at the global level and why wealthy countries like the UK must help poorer countries in the global south leapfrog fossil fuel energy.
Order ‘If Science Is To Save Us’ by Martin Rees here:
https://amzn.to/3tyx61O
Order ‘COPOUT - How governments have failed the people on climate’ by ClimateGenn host, Nick Breeze, here:
https://amzn.to/3TCECTW
You can episodes early by joining via Youtube or Patreon. Thank you.
In this ClimateGenn episode recorded at COP28 in the UAE, I speak with Rabbi Yonatan Neril from Jerusalem about his interfaith work to unite all faiths for climate action. The Faith pavilion at COP28 aimed to broadcast clear messages to the 6.5 billion plus people around the world who identify with a faith.
Help support this channel by becoming a Youtube or Patron member. You can also buy my book COPOUT which takes you behind the scenes in the COP’s Bluezone, from Paris to the UAE, to highlight the gap between scientific reality and political inaction.
Preorder COPOUT by Nick Breeze now: https://amzn.to/471Fqoi
We also discuss how the failing political COP process is leading us into conflict and trauma, made so horribly clear by what is going on between Israel and Hamas.
When the temperature goes up, conflict increases too. As calls for peace are amplified, the risk of expanding wars also increases. Yonatan says this challenges our species to be more spiritually aware and as stewards of the Earth, rather than destroying it with war and consumption.
Listen to Tzepora Berman explain why over 30years of COPs, emissions continue to rise and the problem gets worse. Also why we need civil society to demand a plan for rapid decarbonisation right now!
PreOrder 'COPOUT - How governments have failed the people on climate' by Nick Breeze - https://amzn.to/3NrXIIG
Subscribe on Youtube and Patreon to get more content and earlier (note during COP28, episodes are being published in full due to time constraints and for wider reach. Thank you.
In this climategenn episode recorded from COp28 in Dubai at the midway point between the 2 weeks, I speak with Professor Kevin Anderson about how the COP has failed humanity but actually is succeeding very well for the people running this colossal festival of carbon in the desert.
Link to Order my book COPOUT - How governments have failed the people on climate: https://amzn.to/487PMnI
We discuss unexpected voices arising here at COP28, from both the Global south and the Arctic Circle, calling for urgent research into geoengineering. They claim the negotiations to eliminate carbon pollution has failed and it is their human right to have all options available to them. We also discuss how the IPCC has aligned itself with the heads of COP, which is essentially aligning itself with prolonged fossil fuel use way beyond the boundaries of safe climate.
This is a very desperate time when even the urgency required to tackle the root cause is being ignored in favour of prolonging the fossil age.
More interviews from COP28 will be published in the next week in full and made public. All of this is causing a rewrite of the final chapter of COPOUT which will drive my publisher at Ad Lib Books crazy. A big thanks to them for their patience.
You can preorder COPOUT globally from here:https://amzn.to/487PMnI . Thank you for listening.
Bill Gates has been interviewed on different occasions in the last couple of months making bold statements about planting trees and, more recently at COP28, how a temperature rise of 3ºC is not too bad. This segment with climate scientist, Professor Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre at University of Manchester and also at the University of Uppsala, reflects on Bill Gates and people like him, asking why they get so much media coverage considering the accuracy of what they say.
Please subscribe to the podcast for free or to get episodes early, become a member on Youtube or Patreon.
Nick Breeze’s book, ‘COPOUT - How governments have failed the people on climate’ is available to preorder from Amazon and all bookshops: https://amzn.to/4a7HPAB
In this ClimateGenn episode I am speaking with author and member of the Climate Psychology Alliance, Sally Weintrobe. We discuss underlying mental processes ranging from Narcissistic entitlement, to profound caring. These form the individual and collective conflicts that society is wrestling with in responding to the climate and ecological crisis.Thanks to all members and subscribers for supporting this work. There is a great deal more interviews to record and to process and your support is vital.[Please note that due to COP28 being in process I am not editing this to a shorter version]Sally is also quoted in my book COPOUT that is available now for preorder. (https://amzn.to/4a2woub) I discuss the failure of governments to act in the last three decades of climate conferences that have passed by and highlight the changing themes that are dominating the current rounds of climate talks. This year will also mark the first COP where Professor Saleemul Huq will not be present. Saleem died last month, leaving a legacy of clear thinking, relentless action and calling out the people, governments and corporations pushing us all into catastrophe. He has featured in many of my interviews and been a significant influence and inspiration in my work over the last decade.Thanks again for listening.
In this ClimateGenn episode I am speaking with Dr Kaitlin Naughten from the British Antarctic Survey about her new research looking at the unavoidable sea-level rise from west Antarctica.
[Subscribe to the ClimateGenn Podcast on Spotify via Patreon to get episodes early: https://patreon.com/genncc ]
[Preorder COPOUT by Nick Breeze: https://copout.genn.cc ]
Although ending fossil fuels is still the main course to pursue, no amount of emissions reduction this century, can slow the melt of this region of Antarctica. We discuss the implications, such as abandoning coastal areas, as well as learning to accept and respond to the growing climate migrant crisis. We also discuss the psychological toll of processing this kind of scientific findings.In the next episode I will be speaking with author and psychoanalyst, Sally Weintrobe about her latest work.As policymakers meet in Dubai for the preCOP discussions, it is with great sadness that we note the death of Professor Saleemul Huq on the 28th October. Saleem has been a huge source of insight for my work over the last decade, giving me many interviews that provide the much needed perspective of the vulnerable nations in the global south. As mentioned before, my own book COPOUT is available for preorder and I am pleased to say that Saleem’s wise words inform the narrative, threading the way from Paris to this years COP in the UAE.Thank you to all Youtube and Patreon subscribers for supporting the channel - with ever more aspects to the climate and ecological crisis emerging, your support makes it a difference.
In this full climategenn episode I am speaking with Professor Kevin Anderson from the Universities of Manchester and Uppsala about how journalists and experts have failed the public by an over dependence on reductionist thinking, as opposed to systems thinking, much needed to avert disaster.[PREORDER: MY BOOK ‘COPOUT - HOW GOVERNMENTS HAVE FAILED THE PEOPLE ON CLIMATE’ (AD LIB BOOKS) IS AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER - https://copout.genn.cc ]Instead of making the space for envisioning a better world, perpetrators of the status quo instead construct fantasies as a way to deflect criticism and delay real action.
In this Climategenn episode I speak with Professor Terry Hughes, Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) based at John Cook University in Australia. Join via Patreon (https://patreon.com/genncc) or Youtube to get access to full episodes weeks early. Full episode contents: 1. The role of coral reefs2. State of reefs in the worlds oceans3. Is it "game over" for the oceans?4. Can reefs bounce back from multiyear bleaching events?5. Australian government: climate rhetoric v's action6. Should we try to intervene to save the reefs with geoengineering?
In this climateGenn episode I am speaking with Dr Jack O’Connor, at the UN University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security. Jack is the author of the Interconnected Disaster Risks Report that is looking at tipping points impacting human security and the Earth System. These so-called Risk Tipping Points are showing signs of tipping and in this interview we discuss how humanity can respond.
Join ClimateGenn to get full episodes early either on Youtube or on Patreon: https://patreon.com/genncc
The report is available for download below, as well as a link to the main website with detailed insights into a number of Risk Tipping Points.
Interconnected Disaster Risks Report download: https://interconnectedrisks.org/downloadMain website URL: https://interconnectedrisks.org/
Find out more about ‘COPOUT - How governments have failed the people on climate’ by Nick Breeze, an overview plus many of the voices who feature: https://copout.genn.cc
Episode contents:
- Comparisons between methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
- Working out the methane budget.
- Atmosphere getting richer in Carbon 13 isotope from fossil fuel industry.
- Something happened in 2006 as Carbon 12 started to rise.
- Rising methane from biological sources.
- Regional increases are spiking.
- Different types of biological sources.
- Feedbacks switching on.
- Wetlands are “turning on”.
- Historic precedent: “huge rapid change”
- Events known as a “Terminations”
- A rapidly changing planet.
- Should we use geoengineering?
In part 3 with Joe, we discuss how dodgy offsets and double accounting feed into COP28 and ask the question - is the COP process set-up to fail? A link to Joe’s in-depth paper on all of this is in the notes.To get full episodes much earlier, join via Youtube or Patreon: https://patreon.com/genncc
Link to Joe's paper on offsets: https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/web.sas.upenn.edu/dist/0/896/files/2023/06/OffsetPaper7.0-6-27-23-FINAL2.pdf
Part 3 Content Guide
1. With so many nations trying to defraud the Paris Agreement carbon accounting mechanism, will we ever achieve our goals?
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Denmark, the oil company and Microsoft - blending the real with the fake offsets for cash.3. UNFCCC Jargon: Authorised offsets, corresponding adjustments… agreed but not compulsory.
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Where are the positives in all this?
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Is the COP set-up to fail?
In Part 2, with Dr Joe Romm, we discuss how offsetting impacts the NDC accounting systems that underpin the Paris Agreement and expose much less well off countries to yet another form of what Joe calls Climate Imperialism
Become a member to get full episodes early: https://patreon.com/genncc
Or on Youtube for video versions: https://www.youtube.com/@NickBreeze/videos
Link to Joe Romm's paper on offsets: https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/web.sas.upenn.edu/dist/0/896/files/2023/06/OffsetPaper7.0-6-27-23-FINAL2.pdf
In part 3 with Joe, we discuss how dodgy offsets and double accounting feed into COP28 and ask the question - is the COP process set-up to fail? A link to Joe’s in-depth paper on all of this is in the notes.
Content guide:
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Switching from the voluntary market to the “compliance market”.
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Defining emissions double accounting.
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Who gets to count the emissions reduction and why.
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Paris Agreement did not solve this issue.
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Two solutions (aside from banning offsets): ‘Mitigation contributions’ and ‘corresponding adjustment’ (an authorised offset).
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How authorised offsets backfire on developing nations.
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COP26 made is easier for developed countries to skim off cheap emissions from developing nations who will have to pay later.
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Climate colonialism or imperialism if the phoney (unregulated) offset price is used.
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The price of offsets will rise.
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Don’t believe the lies of abundant cheap emissions reduction.
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They are cheap because they are meaningless.
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Switzerland buying up cheap carbon offsets to pretend they are making an effort.
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Don’t be a bad faith actor in good faith market.
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It doesn’t cut $2 a tonne to go to zero!
Contents - Part 1 (of 3):
[Support this channel by joing via https://patreon.com/genncc or https://www.youtube.com/@NickBreeze/videos]
Download Joes Paper here.
1 - A license to pollute
2 - Offsets relationship to “net zero”
3 - “Carbon neutral” claims = greenwash
4 - Pay to pollute
5 - 94% of offsets are worthless
6 - Quantifying deforestation is tricky
7 - 2 types of lawsuit
8 - Disputing claims of carbon neutrality
9 - Unregulated markets
10 - Solving the climate problem for a few bucks a tonne (?)
11 - European Carbon Trading System
12 - Unregulated Markets
In this first of three part interview with Dr Joe Romm, we discuss how dodgy off-sets and double accounting are plaguing climate progress at a time when the world urgently needs to get serious about climate change.
Joe Romm was the acting assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewables in the US Department of Energy, back in the 1990’s and also the founder of the now ceased Climate Progress blog. Today Joe is a senior research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Centre for Science, Sustainability and Media.
Part 1 focuses on the how offsets are misused by big brand names and nations in unregulated markets to peddle lies to the public.
In Part 2 we discuss how this impacts the NDC accounting systems that underpin the Paris Agreement and expose much less well off countries to yet another form of what Joe calls Climate Imperialism.
In Part 3 we discuss how COP28 does not bode well having an oil boss as the president and how all these strands come together to reinforce the notion that the UNFCCC process is set-up to fail.
All the main points from this interview with prof. Jason Box from the Geological Survey of Greenland. To get the full episode and also support this channel, you can join on https://youtu.be/9Ddb9pRqcDw or at https://patreon.com/genncc Content points - What are atmospheric river rapids? - what do these teach us about extreme deluge events around the world that we are seeing now? - What is driving it? - Why next year will be worse - What do we have to do?
A fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty is exactly what is needed to switch off the fossil fuel pipelines that are driving crazily hot temperatures, flash flooding, and droughts that directly threaten the global food production system.
[Join now to get full episodes early: https://genn.cc or https://patreon.com/genncc ]
In this ClimateGenn episode I speak with the Chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, Tzepora Berman. Tzepora and her colleagues are designing the framework by which we can begin to switch off the fossil fuel supply that is the root cause of what is a real-time climate emergency.
Episode full contents:
[For full episode interviews join via Patreon: https://patreon.com/genncc or on Youtube: https://youtu.be/v9fEcRYVaf4 ]
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Fossil fuel companies were never a partner is solving climate change.
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The possible world that we see emerging around us.
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How do we face the strength of the fossil fuel industry?
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COP28 is symbolic of political failure.
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Fossil fuel companies are trying to take over key structural processes.
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We must all use our collective agency.
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The Energy Charter Treaty (ETC), and why it must be ended.
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The fossil fuel industry is fragile; don’t be duped into inaction.
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There is another world we can create from this.
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Become the mainstream by better articulating the mission.
Links:
https://www.fossilbanks.org/
https://fossilfueltreaty.org/
https://www.celinekeller.com/dawn-of-the-ect
https://www.beyond-growth-2023.eu/
Full 25 min version: [members link: https://youtu.be/NSdk6BwsSQA or https://genn.cc/dr-alice-hill-insurance/ ] Welcome to the ClimateGenn podcast. This summary version is edited from the full interview. Included are the key points from the discussion and the full version can be accessed by all Youtube and Patreon members. Overview of topics covered: US politicians debate the causes of extreme weather, stymying effective longterm policy. “California is the 4th largest insurance market in the world… so to pull out of that is big news!” State run back-up plan - but back-up plans are ballooning as concentrated risk discourages insurers. Extensive wildfires in 2017 and 2018 wiped out quarter of a century (25yrs) of profits in California. Insurers in California are not allowed to use models that account for the growing risk of climate change. Insurance policies evaluate 1 year of risk but climate is a long-term issue. AXA: At some point the world becomes uninsurable with climate change. Can the risk be spread across the nation? How do we build national resilience (fortresses?)? Too much infrastructure already at great risk. Post Covid, many Americans moved into areas “destined to burn”. East coast of America is subsiding and has one of the worst rates of sea-level rise in the world - “A bad combination!” “A profound risk to the stability of our real estate markets. We are watching the problem but there is a reluctance to address the problem… because it is so large!” What do we need to do? We will see large movements of people and devaluation of assets over time.
Full versions on: https://genn.cc - https://patreon.com/genncc - https://www.youtube.com/@NickBreeze/membership
Full 26 min members version Contents:
- Antarctica Sea Ice Decline
- Antarctic versus Arctic differences
- Greenland can change the global map
- Arctic methane release and potential warming
- Have we crossed a global threshold?
- Can we repair climate?
- Interventions - climate repair?
- Climate is only one of our challenges
- We need new economic models
- UN COPs and broken promises
- Climate is a today problem from Bangladesh to Vietnam
- Loss & Damage is the insurance of the future
- Can we save Antarctic Ice Sheets?
- COP28 nightmare
(Full Episode 27 mins - members: https://youtu.be/xZ7i5_m7udE or https://genn.cc/dr-chad-briggs-risk/) Contents: Military lens - military objectives requires enemies. A hammer in search of a nail.
US Air Force - largest user of fuel in the world. Mitigation inevitably leads to less flight hours. Not an option.
All military, governmental and even social responses have a technology bias. “Reducing emissions” is unpalatable.
In Washington, Trump era impacts on EPA, hangover into Biden Administration.
EPA not responding to disinformation, which has a negative impact on policymaking.
Biden has already approved more oil and gas projects than the entire Trump presidency.
Willow Project and LNG projects with 1200km pipelines across thawing permafrost. Huge cost - what benefit?
Persistent belief that magical techno-fixes will remove pollution from the atmosphere.
SRM - Can’t be controlled once aerosols are up in the stratosphere.
Issues with deployment - companies attached to smaller countries sidestepping regulation.
Conspiracies kill rational discussion. The Pentagon won’t even discuss it.
New paradigm of disaster era present need for integrating disaster risk with climate policy.
Companies still seeking to profit off climate destruction with business models projecting out 10-20 years into the future.
In this ClimateGenn episode I am speaking with Dr Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Climate Research Center, in the US. 2023 has already seen record breaking temperatures in the atmosphere, land and oceans, with horrific impacts to human life, communities and ecology.
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Here we focus on three factors in the climate system that drive these extremes and are still set to break more records, creating a great deal more destruction this year. We focus on the forming El Niño climate phenomenon, as well as ocean heatwaves, impacting the Atlantic and the North Pacific.
Finally, we also discuss the role of the thinning sea ice that is accelerating change in the Arctic region. These changes drive up heat in the Arctic faster, impacting ecosystems and altering the jet stream, these latter impacts being the focus of Dr Francis’s research for over a decade.
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Thank you.
Southern Europe is gripped by drought that could last indefinitely, representing a collapse in the sources of water that we have relied on for drinking water, industrial and agricultural purposes. In this episode we discuss the potential for using atmospheric moisture harvesting as a source for agricultural irrigation. Aquaseek have already piloted their technology in the desert in the USA and with vineyard irrigation in southern Italy. How scaleable is this technology and can we really rely on it to avert a crisis that has brought down previous civilisations?
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In they climate Genn episode I am speaking with Namibian Activist, Ina-Maria Shikongo (Twitter: @IMariashikongo). Ina Maria has been speaking out about the unlawful exploitation of the Okavango Delta in Africa, calling on the Canadian oil company, Recon Africa, to leave Namibia.
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This conversation highlights the plight of countries like Namibia in Africa and beyond, where consumption in the west creates misery and destruction elsewhere. It is absolutely critical that we understand that wider destruction is accelerating back towards us and, if we don’t take radical action to change course and consume much less, as Ina-Maria points out, the future will be bleak for us too.
In this ClimateGenn episode I am speaking with California Climate Tech CEO, Dr Ethan Cohen-Cole, about the impact the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank had on his business and the niche climate tech sector as a whole.
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Far from a 2008 financial domino effect, Ethan says this is a case of ‘one particularly mismanaged institution’, highlighting an unforeseen upside.
In any conversation of this kind, it is critical to state clearly, that all of this is waste of time if anthropogenic carbon emissions are not drastically reduced to zero in the shortest possible time. That is something that is clearly not happening now and something we all need to push for.
What piqued my interest in Capture6 is the potential coupling with existing large-scale technology such as desalination of seawater. In a drier world, we urgently need to make sure we can supply water without further damaging ecosystems.
The atmospheric burden of greenhouse gases is now so high that we are starting breach critical thresholds in the earth system. We don’t just need to stop burning fossil fuels, we need to accelerate the reduction of atmospheric carbon, down from the current levels of around 420 parts per million to well below 350 parts per million. Policymakers are currently not making the structural changes necessary for a system-wide downward shift of the emissions curve.
That was Professor James Hansen speaking during an interview I recorded in Vienna at the European Geophysical Union Conference, in 2012. In this ClimateGenn episode I speak with David Spratt, Research Director, Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration in Australia, about his recent article, ‘Reclaiming the Climate Emergency’ - the links to the article are in the notes.
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We discuss the origins, treatment and what next? Aspect of how do we reclaim and respond appropriately in a real Climate Emergency - much like the one we are irrefutably in.
I have also inserted a segment from this first interview with Professor Hansen in the interview with David, to better highlight how perilous the lack of action over the last decade has really been.
Patreon and Youtube ‘Water Tier’ members can watch the whole unedited 26 minutes interview with Professor Hansen that I have just uploaded. Given the lack off any progress on tackling climate change, much of what Jim said in 2012 is entirely relevant today.
Thank you for listening. I am currently working on the interview and article with Professor Jingfang Fan at the University of Beijing and also Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. We discuss his research on teleconnections between Earth system tipping points and the identification of possible cascade mechanisms.
Thank you.
Reclaiming 'climate emergency’”, today published in English in the Slovenian journal Filozofski vestnik.
The article is also available at:
https://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/filozofski-vestnik/article/view/12054/11185
The whole issue is at:
https://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/filozofski-vestnik
In this ClimateGenn episode I am speaking with Jojo Mehta, Executive Director of Stop Ecocide International about the positive news that the European Parliament is proposing to include Ecocide in EU Law, an important development in the course to have this vital legislation enshrined in international law.
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For those that are not familiar with Ecocide it has this simple definition: Ecocide means unlawful or wanton acts, committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or longterm damage to the environment, being caused by those acts.
A law of Ecocide was first proposed by the late Polly Higgins and it is fantastic to see the progress the organisation is making in fulfilling its objectives. Outlawing environmental destruction is a critical part of how we as a species, reassess our relationship with nature, in the face of climate and ecological breakdown.
In the next episode I am speaking with David Spratt, Research Director, Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, in Australia about his new article on reclaiming the Climate Emergency.
Thanks for listening.
Discussing the critical drought situation in Europe with a focus on Italy. Visit https://genn.cc for more information. View more in the water series by backing this channel on Patreon or by becoming a Youtube member.
Quote by Dr Francesco Avanzi:
“Droughts are often called the creeping disaster because at the very beginning, you don't realise that it's coming up. And when you realise that it's often too late. And in that the dynamic is somehow similar to how the COVID pandemic played out in the early months. That awareness came when somehow it was already too late.”
“what we also see is a shift towards earlier snow seasons. So a later start, earlier melt out date. There are data from some colleagues of ours from CIMA, that have just showed that the duration of the snow season right now is unprecedented over the last 600 years in the Alps. So that's also part of the problem. So this means that, on the one hand, we have to cope with less water from snow, coming earlier than usual during spring. This means that we will have to rethink, to some extent, some of our practice in terms of where and when we store water, and when and how we use it. Last year gave us already quite a lot of lessons and I think to some extent it raised our awareness of changes that are happening. We will have to continue that adaptation and mitigation.”
Nick Breeze: This reminds us, as Francesco said at the outset, that drought is a creeping disaster. The water is stored as snow in the mountains. It runs down into rivers, into the soils and is stored beneath as groundwater. It is a mechanism that we regard as an infinite cycle. Human made climate change is interrupting the cycle by erasing the source of the water.
Dr Francesco Avanzi
“…snow that is not accumulating in a mountain during winter is water that we are not going to have during summer. That's when we need water the most for agriculture, for freshwater supply, and that translated into significant streamflow deficit…
“Groundwater is a savings account. We can take from that to cope with a single dry year. But then when we look at several dry years in a row, that reserve may dry up.”
The UN Climate COP’s are not succeeding in solving the longterm problem of overshooting our Paris climate commitments. This episode focuses on the emerging voices that are defining the overshoot agenda. Full transcript at: https://genn.cc/2023-overshoot/ You can support this work on Patreon: https://patreon.com/genncc
In this ClimateGenn episode, recorded on the last night of the extended COP in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, I am speaking with US COP veteran and legal expert, Professor Dan Bodansky from Arizona State University.
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Dan has extensive experience working with the US negotiating team over the years and shares his insights as to what motivates negotiators and how the nature pot the COP’s themselves are changing from bureaucratic conferences to mega-COP jamborees where the circus atmosphere leeches into the proceedings and influences the outcomes.
However, none of this appears to be stemming the rise of global emissions to below 1.5ºC, the scientific red line that is commonly used to measure the effectiveness of climate policy.
As the breakdown of trust between Global North and South countries continues to haunt the talks, a new think tank appeared at COP27 called The Overshoot Commission tasking itself with looking at navigating a climatically unstable world.
With geoengineering in the form of carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management firmly back on the table, Dan highlights that these investigations are currently about the exclusion of technologies that will not deliver, rather than the selection of technologies for deployment.
The clock ticks and the world is moving into new territory on multiple fronts.
Thank you for listening to this podcast. Please check the genn.cc website for the full COP27 interview and session list. Patreon backers will have access to extra content collected from the conference.
In this COP27 interview with Dr Saleemul Huq we discuss the arrival of Loss & Damage into the negotiations. We also discuss the need to urgently reduce emissions, first in the wealthy nations that have caused, and are causing, so much suffering and destruction, and then with assistance, across the Earth.
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Saleem has been involved in the negotiations here since day 1 so is well placed to discuss the function and dysfunction of the COP process whilst keeping in mind that this is the only forum in the world where poorer vulnerable nations have a seat at the table, even if, as he says, they are not listened to.
All this must change, and fast if we are going to survive the onslaught of accelerating extreme climate impacts like fires, floods, and droughts.
Here at the COP, in the wake of incredible destructive flooding that took lives and destroyed heritage, the nation of Pakistan offers this portentous warning: “What happened in Pakistan won’t stay in Pakistan
Recorded in week 2 of COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
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Professor Hayhoe is a Canadian climate scientist and communicator at the Nature Conservancy and Texas Tech University on the United States.
I this episode we discuss the shifting momentum away from 1.5ºC as a boundary for climate heating, as well as the new arrival of Loss & Damage into the negotiations.
Are the public becoming too cynical and are we all, on the outside, powerless to have any impact? Katharine gives her take on all these issues.
In this ClimateGenn episode, I speak with Professor Jason Box about his recent research that identifies the amount of Greenland’s ice sheet that is committed to melting in the coming decades.
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This so-called Zombie Ice is not included in the mainstream models, and when added to other sources such as glaciers and even the Sleeping Giant, Antarctica, then sea level rises will far exceed current forecasts.
You can find out more on Jason’s dedicated Faster Than Forecast Youtube Channel that I have linked to in the text.
Next week I will be reporting from COP27 in Egypt. It is widely assumed that the conference can deliver nothing in the way of meaningful change in global emissions. Many are shunning the conference and it is easy to see why.
It is worth stating that for billions of people in the Global South, the COP is the only forum they have to make a case for climate justice and seek help as they try to adapt to the catastrophic impacts they are facing today because of our continued sustained burning of coal, oil, and gas.
On the flip side, many global south communities are pushing forward with adaptation strategies and becoming as resilient as possible. As climate chaos spreads, we will need their expertise in order to respond to climate extremes that are now arriving in the Global North.
Thanks for listening.
In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking with Dr Nathalie Hilmi at the Centre Scientifique in Monaco about the need to invest in research, restoration and regeneration of the world's oceans.
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By protecting and restoring ocean ecosystems we can start to create resilience in an area we know is in decline but yet we know so little about.
We have much of the technology and we have the intelligence but we still lack the political will and the investment to protect the world's fast-declining marine ecosystems that our lives are codependent up on.
In the next pre-COP episode I am also speaking with Professor Jason Box to highlight his new work around the Zombie ice on Greenlands ice sheet that is already committed to rising global sea levels this century and is not included in any of the climate models that we depend on for policymaking.
I’ll be catching up with both Nathalie and Jason among many others during week 2 at COP27 in Sharm El-Shiek. This is being dubbed the African COP to draw attention to the world's most vulnerable societies in the global south.
We are striving too for a global loss and damage fund that even you and I may be in need of, in the rapidly advancing onset of extreme climate impacts.
Thanks for listening. You can support my work via Patreon and on Genn.cc. Please do subscribe and leave feedback on any of the channels where you listen or watch this content.
Recent activism in the UK has made worldwide headlines. By bringing cultural treasures into the discussion, it raises new anxieties, and questions about what is at stake.
The visual impact of the soup hitting the van Gogh painting was viscerally shocking to many, including me. On reflection, it reminded me of when the painter Francis Bacon was asked what he would save in a burning house if the choice was between a Rembrandt self-portrait and a cat. Without hesitation Bacon said the cat, emphasising the value of life over art.
With that in mind, the Living Planet Report, shows that animal populations have declined by 70% since 1970. This is mass extinction territory and it is the world that these protestors are trying to draw the wider public attention to.
Regardless of what we think of their action, the post-war boomer generation and my own that have succeeded it, have partaken in this destruction both of the complex web of life on Earth and also the dreams and aspirations of the next and every successive generation.
In this ClimateGenn episode, recorded a few weeks ago with, author, philosopher, and former XR spokesperson, Professor Rupert Read, and his colleague 'Systems and culture change strategist’ Paddy Loughman, we discuss the urgent need for a mobilisation of the moderate masses in what they define as a Moderate Flank.
Social tipping points occur when enough when the force of change can no longer be held back. But what does a Moderate Flank actually look like?
In this ClimateGenn episode, I speak with climate scientist & author Professor Bill McGuire about his recent book titled Hot House Earth. Bill discusses the necessity to discuss worse-case climate outcomes at a time when emissions are still rising and political leaders are looking the other way.
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We discuss the absence of global leadership in the fight to hold temperature rise to within the boundaries that humanity has thrived for the last 11 thousand years. The rate of change means that the next 100 years, let alone the next ten thousand, really require global leadership and collective action from everyone on Earth who has the ability and agency to act.
In the next episode, I speak with former XR spokesman, author, and philosopher, Professor Rupert Read, and Systems and culture change strategist, Paddy Loughman, who have been working towards establishing a new inclusive cross-societal paradigm of action to tackle climate breakdown, that they call the Moderate Flank.
Thanks for listening to ClimateGenn, you can subscribe on all major podcast channels and Youtube to stay up to date and you can also support this channel via Patreon.
In this final Sustainability in Alentejo episode, I speak with João Barroso, manager of the Wines of Alentejo Sustainability Programme (WASP).
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We discuss how the programme evolved from a need to respond to worsening climatic conditions, into a solid certification programme to help communicate the measured results of producers who take sustainability seriously. João also discusses how the programme consciously developed a knowledge-sharing network to accelerate the uptake of best practices.
Some of these best practices include the use of regenerative farming which, in a drought-prone region like Alentejo, is showing very positive results. The difference here, as João says, is between trying to survive in a desert, or, thriving in a garden of Eden. Either way, viticulture at higher temperatures has to mean working with nature, as Professor Kimberly Nicholas has said earlier in the series.
The last point, as Dr Gregory Jones mentioned earlier, is about finding ways to expand these best practices beyond the regional level to the national and international levels. This is where the wine producers and journalists and communicators interface to tell those stories. It seems to me that it is up to all of us to try and decode what is behind the certification labels. We do this best by telling the stories of contemporary viticulture that respects nature, promotes stewardship of the land, and ultimately inspires trust in consumers that the wine industry is on a sustainable pathway.
In this ClimateGenn Episode, Dr Shaun Fitzgerald OBE, Director of the Centre for Climate Repair in Cambridge, discusses new research to build resilient and scaleable kelp growing platforms, asking the key question of whether kelp forests can capture and store a billion tonnes of carbon?
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As the Centre for Climate Repair forges ahead with its 3 R’s strategy of reducing emissions, removing carbon from the atmosphere and repairing essential climate systems such as the Arctic, Shaun has high hopes for large scale ocean sequestration but does not stop short of stating the need for urgent research into engineering methods for reflecting sunlight away from the Earth.
These are controversial proposals for many people and yet the climate problem keeps getting worse, with many governments only making tiny incremental commitments that maintain the status quo of a fossil fuel driven economy and society.
The truth is, as Professor Kevin Anderson has stated, that if we rely on the current ambition our political leaders, we really “are going to hell in a handcart”.
I am interested to hear feedback from listeners and gauge your thoughts on these kinds of proposals.
In this episode, I am speaking with Luis Patrão, director of enology and viticulture at Coelheiros, a stunning 800 hectare, historic estate, north of Evora, in the centre of Alentejo.
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When I visited the estate, Luis gave me a guided tour to demonstrate how the 600+ hectare cork oak forest, 50 hectares of vines, and the 40 hectare walnut orchard are being transformed into a regenerated resilient, and balanced ecosystem that is simply glorious.
It wasn’t always like this. The estate had more of a focus on hunting, running all the way back to 1467. It was only at the end of the last century, that Coelheiros started to be transformed into what is now a buzz of biodiversity.
Luis explains how their biggest challenge has been small birds and bugs, that eat everything from the plants themselves to the fruit they produce.
Wetland restoration and ending centuries of hunting have seen the return of birds of prey such as eagles and falcons. These in return have driven away the small birds that eat the fruit, and the introduction of bats is proving effective at balancing the bug population.
Luis also talks about the increased use of grapes more suited to the climate. Alicant Bouschet is again a favourite for this purpose, where the berries have proven to be more resilient to heatwaves, as well as having a later ripening period.
A feature of this conversation is that Luis talks about the positive impact this process of ‘working with nature’ has had on the wine quality, which he describes as being “ more pure and with greater richness on the palate”.
This kind of readiness for the new cycles of hotter and intense climatic conditions mean that Coelheiros is one of the leaders in Alentejo in starting out on the pilgrimage towards a truly sustainable viticulture.
In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking to Dr Levke Caesar about the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, about what would happen if this vital piece of the climate system either slowed dramatically or even shut down altogether.
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To date the models have been poor anticipators of the speed of localised climate changes. Levke gives an insightful and sincere perspective on the importance of the AMOC as a critical piece of the climate system jigsaw.
In the next episode, we stay in the oceans and speak with Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, Director of the Centre for Climate Repair in Cambridge, about the collaborative effort they are involved with to develop kelp seaweed for both carbon sequestration and the benefit of marine ecosystems and more.
Subscribers via Patreon can also access another episode with Professor Bill McGuire discussing his new book Hothouse Earth and, very shortly, a new interview from my visit to the Monaco Scientific Centre to interview Dr Nathalie Hilmi about the centre's work in ocean research and conservation with corals and whales among other marine ecosystems on the agenda.
Please also check out the Sustainability in Alentejo wine series that I have been posting. The latest episode features an interview with Professor Kimberly Nicholas at the University of Lund about regenerative practices that underscore the critical importance of learning to work with nature rather than against nature.
Thanks for listening to ClimateGenn. Please do like, follow, share, or subscribe if you can. Also, please do leave feedback on episodes.
Animation sources - NASA:
In this interview with climate and wine scientist, Professor Kimberly Nicholas, we discuss the urgency of the climate crisis and the need to scale up mitigation and adaptation in the wine industry and beyond to avoid catastrophic impacts of climate heating.
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Kimberly is originally from Sonoma in California’s wine country and is currently based in Sweden at the University of Lund. She has also recently published a book titled ‘Under The Sky We Make’ highlighting the agency available to all of us to contribute toward a better world. Kimberly also produces a monthly advice column called We Can Fix It sharing thoughts and engaging in broader discussion on this complex subject.
With the lens focussed primarily on wine, we look at the benefits of using a wider range of grape varieties, as well as the growing trend towards regenerative agriculture, to restore soil carbon and build resilience.
To give some context to why there is an emphasis on words like urgency, catastrophe, and resilience, is because the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), a scientist-led division of the United Nations, have in 2022 stated that we need to reduce our emissions in developed nations by 10-12% per year, in order to have a 50% chance of holding warming from rising above 1.5ºC global mean average.
Reducing emissions this fast is a colossal task and is why so many people now agree we are in a climate emergency. Action must start now across our society if we are going to stand a chance of succeeding in sustaining a liveable climate.
The world of wine may only be a tiny percentage of global agriculture but it is also a very sensitive crop and widely regarded as a cultural and luxury product. It is also greatly exposed to the risks of a changing climate and is widely seen as a leader in taking the actions required to transition towards true sustainability.
In this episode of Sustainability in Alentejo Wine Series, I am speaking with João Roquette, CEO and Chairman of the Esporão group about the company’s transformation to organic and resilient production.
Esporão is one of the most famous brand names in Portuguese wine and especially in Alentejo. João has played a leading role driving the company’s move towards organic viticulture.
During my visit I saw huge amounts of effort going into researching indigenous varieties for adaptability to the new climate conditions which are extreme today but will rapidly become normal tomorrow.
The extent of this work has made Esporão a phenomenal success. The company owns 623ha of organic vineyards – the biggest ownership in Portugal, representing about 18% of total organic production in the country.
Here João talks us through how the company reoriented itself as a pioneer towards sustainability goals before the WASP programme was established.
He also says, the Alentejo region as a whole should be proudly waving the flag as leaders in Portugal in taking bold environmental action.
In this ClimateGenn episode I speak to Silver Lining Institute Executive Director, Kelly Wanser about the urgent need to invest billions of dollars into expanding our global coverage of climate modelling capacity.
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The worsening risks we face mean climate interventions to cool the planet are back in discussion in the corridors of power. We discuss the hold ups and the necessity for research that could give all of us a clear idea as to whether such schemes should be deployed or not.
We also discuss how engaging the talents of global south scientists beyond the current superficial level could be a game changer in advancing our ability to respond, and to intervene, in order to counter the catastrophic impacts of warming we are seeing accelerating all around us.
Quotes:
“We are in the far end of what looks like a really bad place for climate change.”
“The media is telling us the math doesn’t add up and the situation is getting a little bit frightening.”
On climate interventions: “Looking at the system where it is and the dangers to people… and the dangers to natural systems, ecology and biodiversity, we are now seeing there is more openness in those communities who were extremely opposed to this than they were in the past… and that’s new!”
“Ultimately, in the United States, and we’ll make this call to the rest of the world, we think there needs to be a step function, a real multi-billion dollar increase in investing against our observations and out model improvements. Separate from climate intervention, just to do the problems, we are not investing enough.”
“We quickly need money and this technical access for researchers in the global south if we want to say that their participation is meaningful… I’ll speak bluntly, I think their participation is more superficial than it should be because they don’t have the capacity to actually do the science.”
Excerpts from interview with Kelly Wanser, Exec Director of SilverLining Institute.
During my trip across Alentejo, it was a pleasure to visit the cooperative Adega de Borba. Winemaking in and around Borba has a long pedigree and is even mentioned in ‘Murray’s handbook to Travels in Portugal’, published in 1864, with reference to ‘A considerable quantity of wine is produced at Borba..’
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And so it is to this day with Borba producing around 10 million bottles per year.
The co-op is also renowned for its quality with their very popular Adega de Borba Reserva being a top seller with its iconic label printed on cork.
During my visit I was given a tour of the winery and the cellars by Helena Ferreira, the director in charge of production and quality control. Helena has been implementing an impressive suite of sustainability protocols right across the organisation.
These include training the 300 growers, covering over 2200 hectares of vineyards, to improving energy, water, and waste management. All of this work is to ensure that the one thousand families who rely on Adega de Borba for their living, have confidence that they will be producing wine there in the years and decades yet to come.
This is episode 4 of 8 in a special series on sustainability in Alentejo in Southern Portugal - one of the most vulnerable wine regions in the world.
In this ClimateGenn episode, we are discussing the risk of maladaptation that can seriously undermine our efforts to tackle the climate challenges we know are coming towards us.
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Dr Lisa Schipper is an Environmental Social Science Research Fellow at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford whose work focuses on adaptation to climate change in developing countries, looking at factors that include gender, religion, and culture, to understand what drives vulnerability.
As vulnerability and suffering increase, it is critical we are able to engage as many people as possible to help shape the solutions that benefit us all and avoid critical errors that can have long-lasting detrimental effects.
In the next episode, I am speaking with Kelly Wanser from the Silver Lining Institute in Washington about their work in trying to counter near-term Earth system destabilisation by a combination of advanced supercomputer situations and interventions that might include marine cloud brightening.
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In this Alentejo Wines episode, I am speaking to Iain Richardson, from the wine estate, Mouchão.
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Mouchão is a great example of an integrated estate in Alentejo where different flora and fauna are interwoven to create the whole.
The Sobreiro, or cork oak trees, are an integral part of the history of this region and yet, as Iain tells us, climate is one of the drivers that is causing a substantial die-off against which he and his team are fighting.
For reference, the Arroba, mentioned in this recording is actually a measure used for weighing cork, equivalent to 15 kilograms.
The story of Mouchao is one that really marries the past with the present in terms of identifying the moment where history and tradition are faced with the need for non-linear responses in order to achieve sustainability.
It is the story that really connects the glass of wine, or jug of olive oil, to the seemingly infinite physical and chemical interactions within the biosphere.
It is also the great human challenge to adapt to these changes, regenerate our soils, and build resilience while learning to live in a different world.
This feeds back into the importance of what programmes like WASP can achieve when they provide the framework for measuring change and disseminating knowledge.
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In this ClimateGenn episode, I speak with Lieutenant General Norman Seip, the President of the American Security Project, about the urgency for the US Senate to stop playing dice with the global climate and vote through policy that will steer America back on course to being a nation worthy of respect. Ever since President George Bush Senior declared the American Way of Life is not up for negotiation, the United States has stood in the way of global efforts to limit the impacts of climate destruction.
We are now unnecessarily gambling our collective futures away because US politicians put wealth and ideology above the endless warnings of climate scientists, ecologists, among many others now screaming for change to avert disaster. It is late in the day and we are all now at risk from business as usual policy and investment that prolongs the use of fossil fuels. Changing now could avert some suffering and, as we discuss here, the United States must grow up and face its responsibility as the world's largest emitter.
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Nick Breeze, Dr Greg V Jones
In the second episode of the Alentejo climate and sustainability series, I'm speaking with winemaker and climate scientist Dr. Greg Jones, who has co-authored climate and wine research papers looking at the vulnerability of certain regions to climate change. One, in particular, that is relevant to this series titled 'Climate Change & Global Wine Quality', published in 2005 states, "Other regions currently with warmer growing seasons, i.e. southern Portugal may become too warm for the existing varieties grown there and hot climate maturity regions may become too warm to produce high-quality wines of any type."
A couple of factors that are important in responding to this deduction are as follows. Mitigation is still essential. Every one of us, every business, every wine business, must play a part in the decarbonisation of human systems. Doing so is a collective responsibility that runs all the way through the wine business, from the vineyards, to how wine is communicated and consumed. But this alone is not enough wine producers have to go further in building resilience, regenerating soils, and ecosystems. This is as much about stewardship as it is about survival.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC recently released a report that states adaptation is critical, because climate impacts due to human-caused global warming, are now unavoidable. Here, Dr. Jones outlines some of the impacts we can expect in regions such as Alentejo, which are among the world's most vulnerable to heat increases and drought conditions. He also gives us his view on why regional certification programs such as the Wines of Alentejo Sustainability Programme play a crucial role in the sharing of knowledge, as well as providing the framework by which actions and progress can be measured. This second episode represents a broader view before we zoom in and meet the producers in Alentejo and hear their fascinating stories about the actions they are taking to boost resilience and protect the quality and reputation of the region.
In this ClimateGenn episode I speak with Fossil Free London activist Nuri Syed Corser about their focussed activism targeting the biggest polluters operating in the UK’s capital.
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At a time when the UK is reeling from extreme heatwaves, the government are holding back on renewable energy projects and backing fossil fuel investments that will please their backers and make the climate problem much, much worse. They are also using the Russian invasion of Ukraine as an excuse to increase coal, oil and gas extraction across the British Isles.
Activist groups like Fossil Free London help to highlight who the polluters are and bring public attention to their careless and destructive activities. As has been said in previous interviews, the activists and civil society groups are more inline with what the science tells us we need to do than the policymakers entrusted to protect us. This has to stop.
Thanks for listening to Climate Genn. In the next episode I am speaking with a retired US General Norman Seip who is now President of the American Security Project and who agrees with me that as much as Climate Change is a US National Security Threat, US climate policy is itself a security threat to the rest of the world.
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As Part of the Climate Genn podcast, I am publishing concurrently with my normal interviews, a series within a series every week for the next 8 weeks called Sustainability & Wine in Alentejo, Portugal’s largest and most climate vulnerable region. This series is part of a larger project commissioned by the Wines of Alentejo Sustainability Programme with whom I have been collaborating for the past year.
Find out more at https://genn.cc
Alentejo Episodes to be released 1 per week for 8 weeks:
EP. 1 Sustainability & Wine in Alentejo An Introduction - Alentejo, a climate-vulnerable region
EP. 2 Dr Greg Jones - we need regional schemes that build into broader framework at a global level
EP. 3 Herdade do Mouchão, Iain Richardson - 600 mature cork oak trees a year lost, it was tragic!
EP. 4 Adega de Borba, Helena Ferriera - 1000 families depend on this business
EP. 5 Herdade do Esporão, João Roquette - Leaders In Portugal
EP. 6 Professor Kimberly Nicholas, Working With Nature
EP. 7 Herdade de Coelheiros, Luis Patrão - If we don’t adapt we are finished
EP. 8 Wines of Alentejo Sustainability Programme (WASP) João Barroso
In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking to climate psychologist and Deputy Director and theme lead for the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformation (CAST Centre) Dr Stuart Capstick from Cardiff University about why scientists who research aspects of climate change are deciding to protest in public, and in some cases getting arrested.
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We discuss the role of scientists in society as a group that have for many years played a key role in informing policy - but what happens when policymakers are not listening and the consequences mean risking the lives and well beings of citizens, which of course, includes their own family and friends.
Stuart is a researcher looking at many aspects of civil disobedience and the publics response to it and has a lot to say that implies to me that more and more people with positions of authority are saying that is enough is enough - the risks to our own existence are now too high.
In the next episode I speak with Nuri Syed Corser from Fossil Free London, a group of activists specifically targeting the fossil fuel industry, their backers and enablers, by, for example, disrupting shareholder events and other tactics.
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In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking with Sunny Morgan in South Africa about the Debt for Climate Campaign that is calling for the global north to cancel the debts of the global south, which are both crippling the economies in developing nations and financing huge fossil fuel projects that we desperately need to get rid of.
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Sunny outlines how these institutions work with corporations to lock in hugely destructive projects that are destroying natural ecology, trashing the climate, and ruining people's lives.
This is a system of corruption that must be stopped as part of the just transition to a fairer and cleaner world. There simply is no place for what equates to a contemporary form of colonialism and the campaign will be making its case at the G7 meeting later this month in Germany and again at COP27 in Egypt in November. Check out their website at debtforclimate.org
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Thank you.
In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking with the theologian, environmentalist and philosopher, and author of over 50 books, Dr John B Cobb, about his efforts to bring into being a Living Earth Movement.
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The Living Earth Movement asks us all to look at how we can reshape humanity to act as part of the ecosphere and not against it. A major part of John’s mission is to call on the US and China to stop competing and start working together as leaders in the change we need to end the destruction of our planet.
John implores all of us as individuals to think about the way we live and not take anything for granted, especially now that we are committed to devastating impacts from the ecological destruction we are bringing on ourselves.
The Living Earth Movement (livingearthmovement.eco) was founded in February, this year at the same time that John turned 97 years old, clearly demonstrating that it is never too late to take action to strive for a better world for all ecology.
Action and activism are hot topics at the moment and in the next episode I am speaking Sunny Morgan in South Africa about a new campaign called Cancel The Debt - a call from thousands of activists in the global south demanding the global north cancel the very debts that are preventing them rising out of poverty and accelerating a green transition.
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In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking with professor Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre at Manchester University.
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This is a longer interview with many, I believe, crucial points for consideration.
We discuss our current usage of the available carbon budget for 1.5ºCelsius at just under 1% per month.
Also the dangerous and foolish behaviour of UK Secretary of State for Energy, Kwasi Kwarteng, in trying to reclassify natural gas (methane), as a green gas in order to increase investment.
Download the Phase-Out Paper being discussed: https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/files/213256008/Tyndall_Production_Phaseout_Report_final_text_3_.pdf
Kevin Anderson Quotes:
“Practically and morally, we are obliged to help [poorer nations] leapfrog over their fossil fuel period.”
“Every month we are using just under 1% of the carbon budget.”
“Senior academics are the new climate skeptics in my view!”
“Natural gas - Methane is a transition fuel… to 4ºC”
“We all paint a picture that fits with our world view but as we reassess that world view repeatedly, eventually it doesn’t sit with our world view.”
“It is disturbing and interesting in the law that we will protect things that are causing incredible damage and we will prosecute things that are trying to stop that incredible damage being caused.”
“Particularly academics, we are paid to be honest and direct about our research and we will sweeten the pill, hugely sweeten the pill in public and I think that is deeply arrogant, of often very decent people, fast we think the public can’t deal with it”
“The policymakers are simply not up to the job.”
In March, Kevin and colleagues at the Tyndall Centre released a research paper titled: Phaseout Pathways for Fossil Fuel Production within Paris-compliant Carbon Budgets. I begin by asking Kevin to clarify the critical points of this paper as he can do this much more clearly than I can!
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In this ClimateGenn episode, I am introducing Alentejo in Southern Portugal, declared in 2005 as one of the most climate-vulnerable wine regions in the world. The Alentejo region has been seeing temperatures rise and drought conditions intensify as rain patterns become more erratic and extreme.
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In June I will be releasing a series of 9 recordings from my visit and interviews with producers and members of the Wines of Alentejo Sustainability Programme, looking at how they are responding to the emergent climate challenges.
In the next ClimateGenn episode out this week, I am speaking with Professor Kevin Anderson about his recent research paper on phasing out fossil fuels to stay within the 1.5ºC obligation that governments set in Paris in 2015. This is a detailed conversation where Kevin talks about our current predicament being ‘The worst of both worlds with dire consequences and less carbon budget available to transition to clean energy’.
What follows is the narration of the typescript of my overall response to the presentation given in London by the Wines of Alentejo producers.
The current heatwave in India and Pakistan sets the scene for this ClimateGenn episode, speaking with Climate Crisis Advisory Group Chair, Professor Sir David King about their new report on what we must do to have the best chance of averting climate and ecological collapse.
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Sir David makes it very clear that nobody will escape these impacts as the climate emergency worsens and what we are seeing in India continues to spread around the world.
Sir David emphasises the need for solidarity and pulling together to meet the challenges at the global level. He also highlights that wealthier countries must pay-up on adaptation costs for vulnerable and poorer nations.
As someone with first hand experience of the climate negotiations, Sir David points the finger at the United States for its lack of global leadership on appropriate climate action at the political level.
Activism around the world is stepping up as people realise the failures of governments to take appropriate action. Even the UN Secretary General is calling out the failures of world leaders, declaring that activists are rational actors compared to those entrusted with power.
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In this ClimateGenn episode I speak with Dr Delton Chen, the originator of the ‘Chen Paper’ concept made famous by Kim Stanley Robinson in his book, Ministry For The Future. Delton is an engineer by training but has take almost a decade out to study economics to see if his Carbon Reward Coin concept, the idea of a reward for mitigating carbon, could provide the missing link needed to rebalance the human economy.
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The Global Reward Coin would be backed by central banks around the world in order to provide stability and a mechanism to account for what he calls, The Living Systems Economy.
By making a comparative analysis of this concept with other economic proposals, Delton asserts that de-growth and circular economy proposals are inadequate to solve the climate emergency when placed in the context of the current paradigm of human civilisation. Please do comment or send feedback as I will be interested to hear what people think.
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In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking with Dr Paul Behrens about how the global food system is vulnerable to the domino effects that arise from conflict, climate impacts and other pressures.
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Over 70% of land use on the planet is given over to animal agriculture and vast amounts of plant-based crops are being used to feed that livestock, we are emitting vastly more carbon than we need and leaving ourselves wide open for uncomfortable and unaffordable shocks.
Paul talks about the changes that we can and should make in order to build resilience and make the food system actually work for all.
Emerging science is showing that we are now vulnerable to multiple extreme events in bread baskets around the world happening at the same time.
With 10% of the world’s population already struggling to feed itself, is now the time for us all to take the action required causing a social tipping point that, for a change, moves in our favour?
Thanks for listening to ClimateGenn. In the next episode, I speak with Dr Delton Chen. Dr Chen is the creator of the Global Carbon Reward coin, a concept made famous in Kim Stanley Robinson’s climate fiction novel, Ministry For The Future.
Through the creation of the Living Systems Economy, Chen believes he has a winning formula to finance the restoration of the biosphere, including tackling ecological breakdown and reducing atmospheric carbon.
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Thank you.
In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking to authors, podcasters, and activists, Sam Moore and Alex Roberts whose recently published book, The Rise Of Ecofascism, explores the characteristics of past, present, and potentially future ‘ecofascism’.
The risks posed to society from extreme politics on the right and the left has been rising in recent years. Even in the last week or so, a cache of information was leaked via the Anonymous hacking group linking Putin’s regime to the financing of far right-wing groups across Europe.
More evidence of the rise in far-right and fascist groups is seen in places like the UK, France, Italy, or Hungary, where political ground can become an objective.
Sam and Alex’s work aims to be a pragmatic guide to identify these tendencies and emerging ideas in order to be able to stop them from rising into dominant movements, which as they evidence in the book, never deliver on the grand promises they make.
They also provide a long history of how the far-right have developed relationships to nature that recur in history and are also echoed today in political narratives around climate denialism and delays in ridding ourselves of the fossil fuel era that is destroying the world as we know it.
Thank you for listening to the ClimateGenn series. In the next episode I am speaking with Dr Paul Behrens on the risks of food system shocks arising from the Ukraine crisis and how this is a signal of how vulnerable our overall food system is in a worsening climate and ecological crisis.
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In this ClimateGenn episode I am speaking with Research Director of the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration in Melbourne, David Spratt, about assessing climate risk and why incremental tweaks to reduce emissions are failing us.
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We also discuss IPCC forecasts, political failure, and how change is possible but it requires a huge mobilisation of resources, coupled with public and political participation and leadership of the Zelensky variety.
The clock is ticking, parts of the system are tipping, whether you call it: code-red, an emergency, or blah blah blah, no one is immune from the cascade of climate impacts that we will face if we continue to do nothing to avert the growing threat of climate change this decade and into the future.
Thanks for listening to ClimateGenn, especially at a time when there is so much violence and the threat of escalation of war.
The pain that this is causing so many is inextricably linked to corruption and fossil fuels that extend well beyond Putin’s regime. I would very much like to express solidarity with the Ukrainian people, as well as with Russians who are standing up to the regime.
https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/
http://www.climatecodered.org/
In this ClimateGenn special episode, I publishing my first interview with Dr Jim Hansen who was at the time Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. This was recorded in 2012 at the European Geophysical Union, the annual conference that takes place every year in Vienna.
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In recent weeks I have exchanged emails again with Dr Hansen to discuss his recent work that has a working title of ‘The Big Climate Short’. Hopefully this will be recorded once his latest work is submitted for publication.
What strikes me about this decade old interview is that the language is so clear and the warnings regarding urgent action are in the timeframe of the next 1-1.5years. He even states the danger of waiting a decade to what would be 2022.
Hansen made international news in the late 80’s when he testified to US Congress about the need to change our energy system and reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases. He is straight pragmatic speaker who has consistently issued warnings that have been ignored despite the rising cost inflicted by such ignorance.
Here he gives very clear definitions of what tipping points are and the danger of crossing them. He discusses the challenges that scientists face in communicating these problems.
He also highlights evidenced strategies that could have significantly dealt with them at the time but with each passing year create an ever growing challenge.
We are now where we are. The recent IPCC report talks about the closing window of opportunity to act. Coming at a time of extreme chaos and suffering in Europe, it is hard to see how we will navigate the coming weeks, months and years.
How we deal with our own fear and concern regarding these issues is very important. War is obviously not the answer and neither is any sense of nihilism. Being able to focus on the problems and act with a broader sense of community is far more rewarding.
In the next episode I am speaking to climate and policy analyst, David Spratt, Research Director at the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration in Melbourne, Australia.
We will be discussing a range of subjects including the accelerating rate of impacts, what climate models don’t tell us, as well as the tipping point risks we can’t see or measure and that may already have been crossed.
Thank you for listening to ClimateGenn. I have many more episodes to produce so please do subscribe. Thank you to all who are supporting the channel via Patreon. You can also drop me a note or comment on my website genn.cc and I will always try to respond.
Thank you.
In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking with Eden Project founder, Sir Tim Smit about the stories that need to be told to create the future we want to have.
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Sir Tim sees the now as a moment of great revolution that is emerging from what he calls the new green enlightenment. With world leaders of low-calibre and backward thinking, it is right to ask from whence will these great game-changers emerge?
If you have just got your head around exponential climate change then why not have a go at exponential biosphere healing? With 20th century style aggression erupting in Europe, it will take a leap of great faith and hope to keep the lantern burning in these dark dystopian times.
Some key quotes:
i. “I am at a real sea change with Eden."
ii. “A very rapid reappraisal is necessary of the whole world of science, of scientific research, the way it is funded…”
iii. “Our disrespect for biology has led to many of the pickles we are now in.”
iv. “I think we are living at a time of great revolution… in twenty years time we will be looking at this as the start of a new green enlightenment.”
v. “I know many many top business people who feel they would not like to do anything other than have a shower after they have been with many bankers!”
vi. “I have met very few leaders who are champions of citizenship. They see leadership as being about being decisive!”
Vii. “I see us a shop window on a future that is still ours to make!”
Thank you for listening to ClimateGenn where we explore the reality of what to do, and how to come to terms with such a severely changing world. You can support this work via https://patreon.com/genncc or by subscribing on any major podcast channel and Youtube. Please also consider sharing any episodes of interest.
In this episode of ClimateGenn I am speaking with Dr Minnie Go about her recent book ‘Rethinking Community Resilience’ looking in detail at how the city of New Orleans emerged from the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.
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Minnie’s work looks at how the dynamics between civic groups and governing bodies can determine very different outcomes.
Distrust of government by those most impacted communities meant they worked hard and fast to repair the damage to the same standards experienced before Katrina hit.
A better-informed approach would have looked at what was necessary to protect them against future impacts that the science tells us are increasing in power and frequency.
Minnie’s work gives us insight into how civic groups and communities are likely to become more resilient based on the characteristics and efficacy of regional government.
In the next episode, I am speaking to Sir Tim Smit, who created the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK just over 20 years ago.
Sir Tim discusses how the Eden Project has developed and become a shop window for initiatives that are going to be key to our survival in the coming years as climate closes in.
Thanks for listening to ClimateGenn - please do consider supporting the series via Patreon and/or following on any of the podcast channels or Youtube. Feedback is always welcome too so don’t hesitate to get in touch. I will try my best to respond.
In this episode of ClimateGenn I am speaking to Dr Paul Behrens about the complexity of population, consumption and climate change.
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In his book, ‘The Best of Times, The Worst of Times’ Paul addresses population, presenting both a pessimistic potential outcome, and also a more hopeful outcome based on a set of choices that we, especially those of us in wealthier high emitting countries, can make to improve the chances for a better future.
One big barrier to a better future is the growing narrative that stokes fears about migration. The propagating of these myths falls under the title of econativism, a term that Paul both defines and discusses in some detail.
Population and migration are critical and controversial issues and when placed in the context of continually rising emissions and consequent impacts, they stress the need for reflection on how we value our own life and the lives of all those around us.
In the next episode I am speaking to Dr Min Hee Go in South Korea about her recent book ‘Rethinking Community Resilience’ that looks at the politics of disaster recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
Minnie’s research highlights the necessity to not just build back from catastrophe but also how we must ensure community resilience, as the frequency and extremity of these events increase.
Thank you for listening to ClimateGenn. You can follow this series on all major podcast channels, on Youtube, on my website at GENN.cc and you can follow and support on Patreon.
Please do subscribe on https://genn.cc and be sure to comment or send me your feedback by email. You can also support this series via https://patreon.com/genncc.
In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking to author and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, Professor Katharine Hayhoe about how her recent book ‘Saving Us’ addresses issues relating to personal agency.
2022 has advanced out of the gate with threats of war, massive volcanic eruptions, economic and political upheavals, conspiracy theories, and the worsening accelerating degradation of the biosphere upon which we are all entirely reliant.
Awareness is growing and people from all walks of life are awakening to the need for emergency action. It now feels like we are simply being held back by an adherence by the few to the value systems and aspirations of the last century.
Thank you for listening to ClimateGenn, we have a programme of interviews for this year looking at the multi-faceted problem of rebalancing life in the biosphere. Please do subscribe and be sure to comment or send me your feedback by email.
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In this ClimateGenn episode, I speak to Dr Ye Tao at Harvard University who is head of the Mirrors for Earth Energy Rebalancing (MEER).
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Addressing climate threats
With global agriculture across the world at high risk from rising temperatures and associated impacts, Ye’s team are proposing increasing the Earth’s reflectivity in order to reduce the temperature within the biosphere.
In this interview we go into some detail about how it works, resource requirements, where it would be deployed and the pathway to scaling up.
Social response is critical
Ye also highlights the need for more understanding of psychology in order to be able to align the growing numbers of people around the world who are realising that our future is in a perilous state.
By bringing people together, putting our wellbeing and safety before profit and extractive endeavours, only then do we really stand a chance of seeing these grand ideas tested and eventually deployed.
So much to lose, all to play for
A special thank you this week to Marion Troia who sent in a transcript of my last interview with Dr Tero Mustenon. This is interview received terrific feedback and resonated with a great many people, not least myself, so I am really grateful for this support.
Thank you to all my new Patrons who are supporting this series and to everyone for listening, commenting and getting in touch.
In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking Dr Tero Mustonen who is based within the Arctic Circle about the enormous changes happening there today and that are going to cascade across the globe impacting every one of us.
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Tero works with indigenous peoples inside the Arctic Circle and beyond, utilising what is called Traditional Knowledge Systems that include the linguistic, cultural and natural environments that are complex and holistic.
These ancient ways of understanding the world also hold the key to solving many of our systemic problems and yet they are being extinguished, along with the broad swathe of life on Earth.
This is all a result of centuries of extraction and consumption, that underpin our contemporary experience of living in developed nations.
Despite Tero’s despairing message, he also suggests a pathway to planetary repair through rewinding and by deepening our custodial relationship with nature.
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In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking with author Tom Rosenstiel about his new political thriller, The Days To Come. Tom has switched hats from journalist to fiction writer, possessing a depth of insight into how both disciplines interact with the public and our experience of reality?
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The Days To Come is a thriller with a climate change theme that touches on many of the complex factors that can either accelerate or undermine our progress in tackling the climate crisis.
In this interview we discuss how the book intersects with contemporary reality and also how fiction and journalism contribute to shaping the narrative we internalise that helps us for envision the future.
In the next episode I am speaking with indigenous Sámi scholar Dr Tero Mustonen, who is based in the Finnish Arctic, about the climate changes that threaten his communities existence and by extension, our own.
We will also discuss what we can do to try and reverse the extreme nature of change in these critical and vulnerable regions of the world.
Thank you for listening. Please do subscribe, comment or send feedback because I do read as much as I can and try to respond where possible.
Thank you.
In this ClimateGenn episode, I am speaking to professor Peter Wadhams from the University of Cambridge about his recent research for a book he is writing on the viability of greenhouse gas removal from the atmosphere.
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Some of these proposals are also referred to as negative emissions technologies, or ‘nets’ and are widely included in national emissions reduction plans despite none being proven at scale today. We discuss the viability of various proposed techniques including tree planting, bioenergy capture and storage as well as direct air capture and ocean proposals including farming kelp and the use of diatoms for large-scale sequestration. In the last segment we discuss the risks posed by Arctic methane releases and two proposed techniques for dealing with a potential methane emergency, whereby multiple billions of tonnes of the potent greenhouse gas are released at once. These are controversial proposals despite policymakers assuming they will work in the future. The danger of these suppositions is compounded by the fact that many research projects are embryonic and underfunded. Thank you for listening.
In the next episode, I speak with author Professor Tom Rosenstiel about his new political thriller, The Days To Come. In this interview, we discuss fiction writing and journalism and how these both intersect with reality to shape our world. You can subscribe on all major podcast channels or Youtube and you can also support my work via https://Patreon.com/genncc Visit https://genn.cc for more information. Thanks for listening.
Political elites in the UK have never looked more out of touch than they do today. Despite this, in Scotland, we see a Climate Citizens Assembly that is working with experts to come up with ideas for achieving a lower carbon, cleaner and fairer society.
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In this episode, I am speaking with the Secretariat of the Scottish Climate Assembly, Susie Townend, who has overseen the creation of the first report to the Scottish Parliament guided by experts but very much created by ordinary folks from across the country.
The Scottish Parliament is reviewing the report submitted by the assembly and will respond with feedback by the end of this year.
Given the Scottish government’s positive signals given during COP26 in Glasgow, on their commitment to Loss and Damage funding for vulnerable nations, there is some confidence that they are taking the assembly’s input seriously.
This kind of informed approach, places empathy, justice, and inclusion at the heart of the policymaking process. It also acknowledges that involving citizens increases momentum towards shaping a world we actually want to live in.
Thank you for listening. This whole project is now under the name of ClimateGenn and the archive of work can be seen at genn.cc. You can support this work via patreon.com/genncc - you can also subscribe on Youtube and all of the main podcasts & social media channels.
In this ClimateGenn podcast episode, I am speaking to Dr Saleemul Huq about the true outcome of COP26 highlighting how the UK Presidency abandoned the world's most vulnerable nations in order to tow the line of the USA.
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Saleem also makes it clear that 1.1ºC, where we are today, is the new 1.5ºC - climate impacts are here and they are devastating lives and also taking lives. We must stop thinking about climate action in the future tense and start taking action in the present before it is truly too late to adapt to what we now know is coming.
Once highly regarded as a nation that wielded great strength in diplomacy, COP26 will be remembered for the British government's disastrous inability to manage events of global importance.
As we move away from Glasgow the threat of extreme impacts grows all the time around us and in response we commit to increasing greenhouse gas emissions that are driving us off the cliff. The pledges made cannot be trusted on the basis that previous pledges have been broken.
If as Saleem says, the rich countries continue to bully the poorer nations while consuming the remaining carbon budgets, then our own moral integrity is what is in question. At what point do we say 'no more'?
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In this episode, recorded in Glasgow, I speak to Dr Paul Behrens from Leiden University about how, regardless of what choices we make, humanity is now committed to passing through the eye of the metaphorical needle.
What we can expect on the other side may well be in our gift to decide but with each strike of the clock, the forecasts for humanity get bleaker.
In his new book, ‘The Best of Times, The Worst of Times’, Paul presents realistic outcomes based on the best case and worst-case scenarios. As he says, the worst case does not necessarily mean a 4ºC world. Tragedy can come long before this and in many parts of the world, it already has. To illustrate this point further, I have put an excerpt of Sir David King speaking about why we must take climate repair seriously, at the end of this podcast.
I am planning to catch up again with Paul in the near future to record a population special, based on his research that is also profiled in the book. These are important perspectives worth grasping in an ever more complex and treacherous world.
Thanks for listening to this COP notes mini-series. In the next episode, I will be speaking to Dr Saleemul Huq as we look forward from the wreckage of COP26.
I will also be publishing my interview with Scottish Climate Assembly Secretariat, Susie Townend. Susie has overseen the creation of the Climate Assembly report to the Scottish parliament that is currently in review. This is an exciting insight into how citizens, experts and policymakers could shape a fairer, more equitable, landscape for change.
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In this special podcast edition, I have combined the two interviews with Sir David King and Professor Kevin Anderson to create a wrap-up commentary on the COP that I think is insightful and multifaceted.
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Both interviewees come with a wealth of insight and experience and whether you agree or disagree with what they say, there is no doubt that both scientists force us to think deeply about the way forward from this crisis point in the human journey.
Both speakers also touch on common themes about how we think of the COP process and what a successful or failed COP actually looks like. If the politics is failing then what are the positive aspects that we should keep or even exponentiate?
Hopefully, guidance towards those answers emerges from these interactions.
Thank you for listening. We are nearing the end of COP26 specific content. I have one more interview to upload with Dr Paul Behrens where we discuss some of the themes in his fascinating new book, ‘Best of Times, Worst of Times’. I am also scheduling another call with Dr Behrens to discuss his fascinating chapter on population dynamics as they apply to the Earth’s carrying capacity.
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Welcome to the shortened edit of the Adaptation panel that I moderated during COP26 in Glasgow with Pooran Desai.
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On the panel we had Professor Alice Hill and Professor Sir David King, as well Namibian ‘Fridays 4 Future’ Activist Jakapita Kandanga, as well as Professor Kevin Anderson.
In this session we are focussed largely on the UK, USA and Namibia and delve into the complexity of social change, education, building resilience in our cities and how the global middle classes have an obligation to consume less and lead by example as millions more are lifted out of poverty.
Other subjects such as greenhouse gas removal, electrification and the role of nuclear also enter the discussion.
We were very grateful to such an engaged audience and to the panel and partners who made this happen. The unedited film version is on my Youtube Channel at Nick Breeze ClimateGenn.
There are two more COP26 focussed podcasts to upload in the next couple of days which I think offer unique insights. I will also be recording the next round of forward looking interviews with special guests starting this week.
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After filming the Greenland interview on the Denamrk pavilion in the Blue Zone at COP26, we recorded this short segment on Jason's view on how Denmark, his adopted country, is doing on their climate pledges. Follow my work in more detail at https://genn.cc or support my work (and stay up to date on https://patron.com/genncc
In this miniseries of podcasts, I am uploading a selection of the recordings that I took from COP26 starting with this one with 3 ice scientists, Professor Jonathan Bamber, Professor Jason Box, and Professor Matthias Huss.
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The Cryosphere pavilion in the blue zone at the COP provided the context I needed to be able to understand whether the word ‘Ambition’ truly correlated to the safety of the citizens that negotiators were tasked to defend.
It worth noting that we are now decades into the COP process that aims to prevent a catastrophe on Earth but the process itself appears to be broken. The COP where the scientists discuss climate and ecological threats is a solar system away from the jargon in the surrounding rooms that eventually formed the Glasgow Pact.
In the next episode, I will upload the audio of the Adapt Now Panel session that I moderated with guests Professor Alice Hill, Professor Sir David King, Professor Kevin Anderson, as well as special guest, youth activist from Namibia, Jakapita Kandanga. This session was co-hosted by Pooran Desai OBE from One Planet.
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future - please subscribe or follow my work on genn.cc - all the links and socials are in the notes.
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am inside the COP attending talks and speaking mainly to scientists but also half listening to the pledges and commitments being made. What is striking is the sense of foreboding from people who have followed these negotiations for many years.
Contents:
00:00 Intro by Nick Breeze
01:00 John Kerry speaking to C40 mayors
01:23 Professor Richard Bamba (excerpt)
02:09 Kevin Anderson discussing ‘inside the cop’
The noise of the globetrotting political class presents an image of absolute urgency and seemingly sincere desire to do something about it, however, the pledges being put forth, not only fall short of the level of action the science says we need, it also is non-binding.
‘Mission' accomplished?
History has shown us that what is said at COP stays at COP. The fanfare and celebrations that many are seeking at the end may well and UK Prime Minister Johnson may well get his opportunity to smirk at the cameras and declare his mission accomplished.
Ironically, the word ‘mission’ is attached to lots of initiatives in the climate action sphere but perhaps submission is a more worthy moniker, as the much-vaunted ambition slumps into a commitment that will see ice sheets and glaciers succumb to rising temperatures in the atmosphere and the oceans.
Eyes & ears on the science
More interviews discussing the science will follow and serve as a brief intro into the reality that we are facing. If we don’t radically change direction then society will enter a phase of chaos and collapse in the face of destabilised weather and rapidly rising seas. What this may look like has been widely speculated and everyone has their own version of the nightmare to contemplate.
Who possesses the agency to act?
This being the case, now is the time to question the direction that our leaders and the powerful in society are taking us. Failure is not assured and the angry voices of people outside the COP are starting to be heard.
Currently, the politicians and the powerful control the narrative and possess the agency of divination but is anyone truly listening anymore? We have heard for decades, the promises that are founded on urgency and deception.
The agency that has been taken away from people in terms of a top down ruling of society, with people clambering up the greasy pole to wag their fingers at those below, has now had its day.
Every one of us is in a position to contemplate the agency that we possess in our daily lives and in the communities we inhabit. It is essential now that we use that agency in whatever way we see fit to raise the level of real action to a point where apocalyptic visions of the near-future can be consigned to fiction.
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In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking to professor Rupert Read on the eve of his trial that has since taken place resulting in a guilty verdict and a very modest fine handed down.
Links: Live Event 8 Nov '21 in Glasgow https://youtu.be/ItixWfasssk - Patreon: https://patreon.com/genncc My site: https://genn.cc
Here we discuss the role of disinformation organisations like the Global Warming Policy Foundation who have spent the last decade denying the threat that climate change poses to ordinary people.
As we head to COP26 Glasgow, many politicians, let alone climate scientists are calling this summit: 'a last chance to save the future of humanity'. Despite this, pundits and mainstream media outlets such as The Economist are warning us to prepare for disappointment.
This should come as no surprise, thus confirming the successful work of climate denialism over the last decades. The job ahead is too unpalatable for policymakers to sell to civilians despite the growing eco-anxiety among us all.
From Sunday I will be reporting from the COP speaking to many people who I have interviewed for this podcast and many more. We will also be live-streaming an event on the 8th of November titled Adapt Now - on my Youtube Channel, so please do join us.
I have 2 more interviews to present very shortly but time is making it hard to turn these around but I’ll do my best.
Thanks for listening to all these interviews and sharing your feedback which I always try to read. You can subscribe on Youtube or any major podcast channel. You can also support my work via Patreon.
In the run-up to COP26 we face a new onslaught of mainstream media coverage of how this conference will decide the fate of humanity. The truth is that even the best outcome being sought by policymakers is far short of what the science tells us is needed to stabilise the global climate.
Since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where the accelerating decline of planetary systems was acknowledged and leaders expressed the need for change, nothing has been achieved to stop the catastrophic circumstances that we are facing today.
In this episode of Shaping The Future I am speaking with Professor Kevin Anderson about his (and colleagues) new paper to be published on the 17th October titled, Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven’t We Bent the Global Emissions Curve?
In this analysis also emerges potential opportunities that could shift the locus of where we are in entrenched greed by a powerful few, towards a better prepared and resilient future for the majority of us.
In the next episode, I am speaking with Jakapita Nanganda on her struggle to oppose oil drilling and the contamination and destruction of forests in Namibia, and the struggles her family is confronting in the face of severe drought. Jakapita will be traveling to COP26 as part of Fridays For Future International to demand a brighter future for her generation.
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Dr Saleemul Huq is a highly respected climate scientist from Bangladesh who has worked for decades to progress the safety of the most vulnerable people up the climate policymaking agenda.
Traditionally the most vulnerable people have been from places like Saleem's own country, Bangladesh, but in this interview, he stresses that we have crossed a new threshold.
What we have been seeing in the US and Northern Europe clearly shows that the most vulnerable could be ourselves, our neighbors, or our loved ones.
Global climate extremes have arrived at our door and the time to adapt and build resilience is now. As an expert in this field, Saleem gives us some pertinent insights into what makes resilience really work. It is not technology and it is not wealth.
Thanks for listening to Shaping The Future, there are many more episodes being produced in which we are striving to increase our own understanding and help create a future that we all want to live in.
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In this special episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with Menghestab Haile, Regional Director for the World Food Programme in Southern Africa, In particular, we are discussing the climate driven drought in southern Madagascar that has over 1 million people on the brink of starvation, including many children in a state of malnutrition.
The situation is a dire emergency and very much deserves our attention because the drought that is causing the famine is caused directly by emissions from those of us in developed countries.
However, there is a direct link to the previous episode in this series with Alice Hill discussing the need for adaptation and readiness for climate extremes.
As Menghestab points out, southern Madagascar is in a period of transition, and given the right support, they can continue to grow crops here and adapt to new emergent conditions.
I initially contacted the WFP to do this interview to highlight the humanitarian emergency, however, it has been striking that this is what a real-time climate red alert really looks like.
This is a region where many people live by subsistence farming and, no matter the outcome of climate conferences, adaptation is critical.
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In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with Alice Hill who was Special Assistant to President Obama at the White House and Senior Director for Resilience Policy at the National Security Council, working on climate change and pandemic preparedness.
In her new book, ‘The Fight For Climate After COVID-19’, to be published on the 5th September, Alice makes the case for why it is imperative that we begin the necessary planning for adaptation for concurrent and consecutive climate extremes that threaten society the world over.
With COP26 on the horizon, we are seeing decades of climate policy on mitigation come to virtually nothing as emissions still rise.
Timestamps based on interview Questions:
01:20 Most of the narrative around our climate change response at the moment is very focussed on mitigation and debate rages on, regarding whether we are doing enough, fast enough. Your book is a very pragmatic and, in many ways reassuring, breakdown of what we need to do to adapt to climate impacts.
Can you start by giving us some background on what led you to write a book that is essentially a global climate preparedness strategy?
03:16 Early on in the book you refer to failures of imagination that mean we cannot prepare effectively. Can you elaborate on what this means and the tools that will need to be developed and deployed in order to fill the imagination gap?
06:40 We are getting strong signals now of what extreme climate-driven impacts look like. You discuss preparedness for concurrent and consecutive disasters. Can you give an example of this kind of scenario and the resilience that would be needed?
09:00 If you take the US, or Europe, for example, we don’t seem to hear much talk about preparation for adaptation, compared to places like Bangladesh, despite the impacts becoming more severe and widespread. Why is it so hard for developed nations to get ahead on this?
14:10 You outline some excellent examples of leadership success and leadership failures, making the point that leadership matters.Looking at how countries have responded to the pandemic, there are obvious winners and losers but, generally, are you seeing the leadership qualities we need to steer us through the critical resilience building years ahead?
15:40 Another major theme you highlight is the borderless nature of climate change and how our response should be equally borderless. If you take a country like the UK and even the US, it seems that we have an unhelpful obsession with borders. How does greater resilience relate to greater cross-border cooperation?
*Include water sharing (17:25).
19:10 You use the term ‘survival migrants’ in the book - what are these and how do they fit into the landscape of global change we are entering?
20:05 Is this one issue perhaps a great test of our empathy and humanity?
28:00 How close are we to the point where insurers (and re-insurers) stop insuring?
31:25 In a press conference a few days ago with an agricultural producer in the US I asked how much of their climate strategy was allocated towards adaptation.
The answer came back that the focus was purely on mitigation. Can you end by summarising why adaptation planning and mitigation strategies must be treated with equal seriousness right now?
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Contents with Timestamps
- Hybrid Warfare 01:35
- Resilience targeting 4:35
- Politics, economics and fossil fuel interests 5:30
- Sources of disinformation are a national security threat 8:00
- Cyber Aggression 9:00
- Climate migrants and nationalist politics 10:30
- Tackling societal breakdown due to climate resilience failure at source 12:40
- Local knowledge versus models and remote assessments CUT
- Dependency on fossil fuel supports regimes responsible for disinformation 14:40
- Geoengineering, risk and attribution CUT
- A UN Security Council Specifically for Climate Change 17:35
- Opportunities for positive diplomatic solutions | Building trust in time 19:10
- Planning a pragmatic route to the future from Phase Zero 21:08
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking to Global Security expert, Dr Chad Briggs at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Chad advises many global organisations on the intersection between climate change and national and regional security issues. His clients include the US State Department, US Air Force, the Swedish Armed Forces, the European Union, as well as US Dept of Energy, among others.
Chad explains the linkages between climate change and hybrid warfare situations that are going on now and will continue to pose a massive threat to societies around the world. These include government level sources of disinformation, such as the Global Warming Policy Foundation in the UK or the Heartland Institute in the US, who are funded by fossil fuel interest groups to sow doubt and chaos that drive us further down the road of climate catastrophe.
I want to thank the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change (GMACCC) for their help in organising this series of interviews with security experts. The next interview will be with former Obama White House advisor and Head of the US National Security Council for Climate, Alice Hill about her new book due out in September.
Additional segments on Geoengineering and models versus first-hand knowledge from this interview with Chad will be available later this week to Patreon backers via GENN.cc. This will be accompanied by an overview of the forthcoming interviews and reflections on key points that are emerging from the series.
Thanks for listening to Shaping The Future - you can subscribe on Youtube or any podcast channel and sign up for email updates on GENN.cc.
I will also be covering COP26 in Glasgow and conducting interviews with a wide range of participants. So do stay tuned and if you can, please support my work via Patreon.
You can also subscribe via the Cambridge Climate Lecture Series at climateseries.com
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Centre for Climate Repair: https://www.climaterepair.eng.cam.ac.uk/
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with the Director of the Centre for Climate Repair in Cambridge, Dr Shaun Fitzgerald about how buildings can be adapted for climate resilience and the potential for flipping them from carbon sources to carbon sinks.
With many of the world's largest future cities yet to be built and much of the existing infrastructure in developed countries being unfit for extreme climate scenarios, it is essential that building development projects and innovation are able to meet and beat the challenges that lay ahead.
Recent extreme climate catastrophes demonstrate that we need to start adapting to climate change right now and at scale. The theme of adaptation planning is one that I will be exploring more in the coming weeks.
If you are listening on Youtube or GENN.cc or another podcast channel, please do post your thoughts on the content in the comments and I will always read and try to reply. Your feedback is most appreciated.
Please do subscribe to Shaping The Future at GENN.cc where you can also see the whole podcast archive as well as interviews, panels and articles from the last 5 COP’s as we head towards COP26 Glasgow.
If you want to support my work please do so via the Patreon links on genn.cc. I’ll be covering COP26 with filmed interviews and lots of additional content throughout the 2 weeks.
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with former UK Government Chief Science Advisor, Sir David King. Sir David has recently set up the Climate Crisis Advisory Group (CCAG) to respond with agility to the real-time climate crisis.
The first report is linked in the notes and focuses on the Arctic as a key regulator of global climate stability and more recently, chaotic disruption.
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Key points:
- Jet Stream Omega Event
- Johanne Rockstrum: Arctic tipping point has passed.
- Are accelerating impacts at risk of outpacing action?
- Scientists have mismanaged the modelling of climate change events.
- Greenland ice sheet is sitting in warm air and losing ice rapidly.
- We are not prepared for what we are currently seeing!
- We need a UN Security Council For Climate Change.
- Our future as a civilisation depends on a rapid response to the situation.
- UK Policy on China: Timing-wise it could not be worse! The EU, China and US are all talking together.
- Greenhouse Gas Removal: Build up oceans to what they used to be and we could absorb 30-40 billion tonnes per annum.
- Refreezing the Arctic: If we don’t manage this we are cooked!
- The CCAG Report is for Governments, Businesses and Financial operations. The time for action is now!
Sir David discusses the mantra they are trying to get into the mainstream consciousness of climate action: Reduce, Remove and Repair. The message is clear that climate is now the main issue threatening our civilisation across the globe.
We are now crossing tipping points and the time rapid scaled up action is now.
Sir David also suggests the creation of a UN Security Council for Climate Change to deal specifically with the international efforts of nations and regions to tackle arising issues. This connects to my interview next week with NATO and US Government Security Advisor on Climate Change, Chad Briggs.
Next week I will also be talking to Dr Shaun Fitzgerald OBE, Director of the Centre for Climate Repair in Cambridge about how we need to flip our building infrastructure from a massive carbon source to carbon sink. This includes existing buildings and the colossal amount that needs to be built with resilience around the world to weather the tide of climate adversity.
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future. You can see the full archive of podcast interviews and reporting from the last 5 COP’s at GENN.cc. Please subscribe to the podcast on any of the main channels and please do consider backing my work on Patreon.
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with Adrian Tait, co-founder of the Climate Psychology Alliance about his contribution to the new Deep Adaptation book.
Links to buy Deep Adaption: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Adaptation-Navigating-Realities-Climate/dp/1509546847 Support this channel: https://patreon.com/genncc Cambridge Climate Lecture Series - Shaping The Future: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast Nick Breeze's site with full archive: genn.cc Climate Psychology Alliance: https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/
This newly published volume edited by and contributed to by Jem Bendell and Rupert Read includes an updated version of the original Deep Adaptation paper as well input from a total of 20 contributors across a range of fields that deal with issues related to Deep Adaptation and the subject of collapse.
Deep Adaptation, with its subheader of ‘Navigating The Realities of Climate Chaos’ is divided into 3 parts: The Predicament, Shifts In Being and Shifts In Doing.
Adrian’s contribution gives a broad overview of the evolving field of climate psychology, including the symptoms of distress and denial assisting us to recognise and empathise when we detect them in peers and/or colleagues.
Deep Adaptation covers a range of subjects including the future of activism, leadership, the study of collapse itself and related ideas. It is itself a starting point to explore themes around feeling, assimilating and responding to systemic as well as ecological collapse.
This subject of this book contrasts and compliments another book that will be published later this year titled ‘The Fight For Climate After COVID-19’ by Alice Hill. Alice has previously served as special assistant to President Barack Obama and senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff and will be discussing her new book here in late August just ahead of publication.
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future. You can now see the full archive of episodes at GENN.cc along with the archive of interviews and footage recorded at the last 5 COP’s.
As we prepare for COP26 in Glasgow, it is worth considering that the climate threats anticipated 30 years ago at the Rio Earth Summit are now among us creating suffering and loss on a daily basis, while not one policy fit for purpose has been implemented to prevent them.
Someone might have warned George Bush Senior when he stated that the American way of life is not up for negotiation, that nature cares not for political grandiosity.
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In this episode, I speak to the philosopher, Martin Bunzl, about his new book, Thinking While Walking, Reflections on the Pacific Crest Trail.
As Martin traverses the 2650 mile trail from the Mexican-US border to the US-Canada border, questions emerge around our own relationship with what we call the natural world.
If humanity has curated the landscape for thousands of years, both for-profit and pleasure, what are the impasses and delusions that we are to face in solving the huge ecological and climate problems that currently block our road to the future?
These ideas have been discussed before in terms of man versus nature but Martin gives concrete examples of where our romantic view of nature has already shaped the world around us.
Thinking While Walking is a fascinating book that considers many of the entrenched positions that many of us hold when we think or speak about action on climate change.
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future. There are many more episodes on the way, so please consider subscribing via our podcast or Youtube channels. You can also support my work by backing it at patreon.com/genncc.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro by Nick Breeze
01:21 Role of philosophy in responding to climate challenges.
05:00 Tension between stemming energy and stemming population among global poorest.
07:00 Our relationship with nature. “We forget that human beings started changing nature at least ten thousand years before the Christian era.”
11:20 Manmade versus nature-based solutions.
13:50 We need to remove 8 billion tonnes of CO2 for every part per million of carbon dioxide that we want to remove from the atmosphere.
16:15 Does the precautionary principle as a term oversimplify the reality of the climate predicament or is it an apt term given there are so many vulnerable people?
20:30 Manmade interventions that create winners and losers.
25:40: Genetical engineering for greenhouse gas removal that could see 40% of our emissions removed by agriculture. Is the potential risk too unpalatable?
31:02 Are we saving the world or creating an idea of nature that fits our anthropocentric interest?
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In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with Gold Standard CEO, Margaret Kim. Gold Standard sets the standard for climate positive implementation of a wide range of global-scale projects.
The global push to eradicate emissions means that activities and processes must be credible and effective if they are to build trust that we are on target to avert overshoot due to the billions of tonnes of human greenhouse gases emitted annually.
Margaret has enormous expertise in understanding the processes that solve these issues and also the reality of what it means if we fail to deliver.
Recent heatwaves and storm events are causing devastation across the world regardless of where people are located. The need for accelerated transformation of our society to one that absorbs rather than emits carbon has never been greater.
Thanks for listening to Shaping The Future. You can support this channel via my Patreon page or by subscribing to channels and giving feedback. There are many more episodes on the way discussing a wide range of climate issues so please stay tuned.
Time Stamps:
00:00 Intro by Nick Breeze
01:30 Ensuring carbon reduction project manage negative environmental risks
03:30 Establishing public trust in the fight against greenwashing
07:20 Assessing impacts: “If you don’t know, you don’t care!”
14:00 On policy shifts: “We have seen huge movements from civil society groups, youth communities, making more progress than the 198 negotiators and governments supporting that. I really hope that COP26 shows leadership that is badly needed.
16:00 “Scope 3 emissions are key to Net Zero… but there is still a large gap…”
19:00 “We have clear science-based mile stones…. This is not something we can say is nice to have. It is a must.”
More:
https://www.goldstandard.org/
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This episode features an interview with former Pakistani Defence Minister General Ghazi. I recorded this at COP25 in Madrid and am replaying here because General Ghazi identifies with great clarity, a stage process that can lead a nation or region into conflict.
General Ghazi also outlines the critical role of the military as first responders, when climate extremes create society-wide suffering. The question is here, what more can we learn from experts in risk that can help us build societal resilience and promote cooperation as opposed to conflict in the face of a challenging future?
General Ghazi is a member of the Global Military Advisory Council On Climate Change (GMACCC).
Thanks for listening to Shaping The Future - I will be posting more in this series on ‘Preventing Human Chaos’ in the coming weeks.
Please subscribe to any of the podcast channels or Youtube. You can also support this work via Patreon and do send feedback or comment on GENN.cc.
- Preparing younger officers for climate-related conflicts and perturbations
- How water represents a huge risk to societal stability and what can be done
- Need for cooperation instead of conflict? Politicians lead by numbers so the military is well placed to translate risk into actionable plans?
- Military as first responders in climate chaos and can be prepositioned for disaster management despite the increasingly erratic nature of climate-driven impacts.
- The biggest concern is catastrophic conflict over resources that cross geopolitical lines.
- Future stresses from overpopulated urban areas to pandemics and conflicts.
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In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with French philosopher Mark Alizart about his new book The Climate Coup.
The Climate Coup makes for fascinating reading as Mark identifies the forces of financial and self-interest who are either actively profiting or seeking to gain power from the misery and suffering that is a result of regional and global ecological and climate disasters. I
n identifying these Carbofascists, Mark suggests there are parallels between events such as the Nazi burning of the Reichstag in 1933 and President Bolsonaro’s more recent wilful burning of the Amazon rainforest that has shocked the world.
Linking this seeming madness to the rise of populism, Mark suggests key responses that those of us interested in saving the global commons must consider if we are to win the struggle for a stable future. The book is only 60 pages and available to buy online at the usual places. I would welcome any thoughts or feedback about The Climate Coup, so please do comment or get in touch with your thoughts.
Following this episode, I am going to post an interview I recorded at COP25 in Madrid with retired General Ghazi from Pakistan. General Ghazi was also formerly the Pakistani Defence Minister and explains how current trends of climate disruption increasing pressures on water supply, are a key indicator of future conflict in the region.
Conflict risk and human suffering are only going to increase as the world becomes hotter and resources more restricted. How we behave in the face of such pressures will be the true test of our humanity.
Thanks for listening to Shaping The Future - please subscribe on any of the podcast channels or Youtube, or if you can, support my work via Patreon.
In this episode of Shaping The Future. Am speaking with Christian Kroll, founder, and CEO of Ecosia, the world’s largest not-for-profit search engine that actually uses profits to plant trees.
Christian has built a true 21st-century enterprise that sees profit in terms of how much carbon they can lock up while respecting privacy and paying taxes.
To paraphrase Christian: no one should be able to call themselves a billionaire until they absorb a billion tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere.
Every Ad clicked on the Ecosia search engine means that trees get planted that support communities and the environment.
It is a simple choice that all of us can make, to switch a daily activity, like web searching, to actually having a positive impact on the climate.
Christian also talks about a growing generation of green technology innovators who are doing things differently.
Forget the usual billionaires with macho space toys and start listening to the next generation who are focused on repairing the Earth and shaping a world that is actually better for all of us.
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Time Stamps:
1.45 – Big versus small, Google versus Ecosia, on the eco-scale
3.30 – More users can help drive Ecosia to plant 1 trillion trees
4.30 – Tech companies have a role to play in becoming fully regenerative in terms of repairing climate – carbon neutrality was for the 1980’s!
6.30 – inspiring young people going into the workplace to be part of the transformation of society
9.05 – Tech billionaires look ridiculous in this current age. ‘If you are in the 21st Century, I think you should only be allowed to call yourself a billionaire if you have actually absorbed a billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere!’
9.45 – Young entrepreneurs starting businesses that centralise the climate impact
11.55 – Overall we need to switch from focus on profit to what is important for our wellbeing and happiness – what is the new GDP that we should aim for?
14:40 – Sticking to search tools, protecting privacy and planting trees
16.00 – 80% of users under 30 and engage with Ecosia stories via social media like Instagram/Youtube
17.00 – Message to young innovators: “If people say change is hard, we have to think about what will happen if we don’t change… young people have understood [climate change]… and that is a good thing!”
20.00 – Sharing the knowledge by speaking to large corporations or any entity where change can happen on a meaningful scale. We have to do this fast or we fail.
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I speak with the author, Allison Cobb, about her new book titled ‘Plastic - An Autobiography’.
With poetic sensitivity, Allison explores the complexity of how plastic has become part of our lives and how this material, that can endure for generations, has been wilfully categorised as a ‘single use’ disposable product becoming as ubiquitous as food with a highly toxic indigestible after-life.
This autobiography is also personal, linking the horrendous WW2 invasion of Poland with her ancestors who also worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on the now infamous Manhattan Project to create the first atomic bomb.
This is a story about complexity, personal journey and the plasticity of all life as we venture forth into the next big existential challenge of preventing climate and ecological collapse.
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future - there are many more episodes coming so please do subscribe and also consider supporting this work via Patreon.
Timestamps:
1:30 - ‘I wanted to write about the Anthropocene, the geologic scale human impact on the planet, in a way that made it personal’
3:00 Dupont, “See to it that American’s are never satisfied” - consumer capitalism has proliferated across the world.
5:20 - Heidegger’s essay ‘The Thing’ - technology reduces everything to its use-value.
7:30 The baby albatross with ingested plastic is emblematic of the disposable culture.
10:00 Complexity through personal stories that give us hope through empathy.
13:00 How are we doing in terms of the global collective tackling these huge ecological challenges.
15:00 The role of artists and creators along with every human to make the global shift.
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In this second episode of the methane miniseries, I speak to Professor Orjan Gustafsson from Stockholm University about his team's ongoing collaboration with the Russian research team, led by Professor Igor Semiletov, investigating the Siberian Arctic.
Orjan has published over 80 research papers jointly with his Russian colleagues on their findings in the Russian Arctic over the course of more than a decade. In this episode, he highlights why understanding this region is among one of the most important research areas in climate change today.
Despite the complexity of geopolitics that often infects peoples thinking in dealing with Russia, the opportunities for scientific collaboration in pursuit of critical knowledge can, in the long run, prove more beneficial than any short term political aims.
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future. More interviews and podcasts can be found on climateseries.com, GENN.CC and on all major podcast channels and Youtube.
There are many more episodes being recorded. In fact, I am working really hard to turn them all around. Please do subscribe and all feedback is much appreciated.
CONTENTS:
Interview contents by Timestamp[min:sec]|Subject
00:00 Overview of research programme looking at how carbon feedback processes work.
03:50 Degradation of subsea permafrost.
07:00 Different sources of methane.
09:00 Subsea permafrost not a risk?
11:30 Quantity of thermogenic methane.
13:30 Why this matters for policy.
14:40 Defining megaseeps.
17:00 Extrapolating estimates of megaseeps.
18:38 Is there a known countervailing force?
20:30 Is policy and rate of research in the area sufficient?
21:00 Is the Russian Presidency of the Arctic Council good for research?
21:50 Why what is happening in Siberia should be considered top scientific priority.
23:45 Slope hydrate vulnerability due to Atlantification of Arctic (warm inflow of water).
26:35 Russian Presidency a good opportunity for collaboration.
26:58 Research to be published in 2021.
27:38 New open access database live - CircumArctic Shelf Carbon database, “CASCADE”.
30:45 Science as diplomacy.
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In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with Glaciologist, Dr Heidi Sevestre, about the changing state of the Arctic, the outlook for the Russian Chairmanship of the Arctic Council, of which Heidi herself is an advisor, and how thawing permafrost could be past the threshold of irreversibility.
Heidi combines the spirit of the modern polar explorer with the weight of important scientific work. She is also an excellent communicator and will be speaking at the ChangeNow climate summit later this month in the company of Sir David Attenborough and world-renowned scientist, Johan Rockström, who will be premiering their new documentary, Breaking Boundaries, as part of the virtual summit.
Heidi also gives her perspective on why we literally must fight hard to limit global average warming to 1.5ºC, giving a rare insight into how someone who wanted to be a glaciologist from a very young age actually feels about the rate of loss of the world's glaciers.
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future - please subscribe and share the podcast as we have many more episodes on the way exploring the change needed to avert the worst impacts of climate change.
Links: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
More interviews and transcripts: https://genn.cc
Change Now Summit: https://www.changenow.world
This can also be seen as a video edit with previously unseen footage from the last voyage in late 2020: https://youtu.be/lGgcUSJbAqE
The transcript will also be posted on https://genn.cc and https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
This is part 1 in series of three posts on methane releases from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf recorded in 2021. This is the first in a miniseries discussing the ongoing work in the Russian Arctic talking to Dr Igor Semiletov, one of the lead scientists who has been studying the region for over twenty years.
Old deep thermogenic pool
In assessing whether the potential for increased climate warming is a significant risk, scientists look at the size of the carbon pool and also the origin of the methane. In many cases where methane is produced from biogenic sources, such as animals and plants, it is created by microbes and although has the same global warming potential, it is created very slowly and is often broken down to CO2 before it reaches the atmosphere.
The other source is thermogenic methane that occurs due to the decay of organic matter at high pressure and temperature. For these conditions to occur, the sediments where they are found are older and deeper. In terms of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, many scientists have believed that the methane emissions are from biogenic sources. This means they would be slower to form and overall a lesser risk to the global climate.
This article has been created using extracts from recent interviews with Dr Semiletov. In part 2 I speak to Professor Orjan Gustafsson from the Department of Environmental Science at Stockholm University.
Orjan has been visiting the East Siberian Shelf for many years working alongside an international group of scientists including the Russians. He discusses how research into the escaping methane and thawing permafrost in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf should be greatly expanded considering the magnitude and changing stability of the carbon pool. He also suggests that this research could have enormous ramifications for how carbon budgets that inform policy, are calculated.
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with the Director of Development and Communications at EarthLanka, Saffran Mihnar. Saffran is an advocate for climate solutions focused on communication, campaigning, and policy negotiations.
In this discussion, we discuss the struggles ahead for any journey towards zero or even net emissions.
The UN Conference of the Parties (or COP) process is over a quarter of a century old and has achieved little by way of reducing global emissions but as a regular participant, Saffran offers a voice that speaks to people like me as to why we have to redouble our efforts and start on a real journey to try and save the global commons.
A big part of this journey is about climate justice for those in the least developed and developing nations. Consumption in rich countries is currently a death sentence, first for the poorest on Earth and eventually the majority of us.
We discuss why aligning our personal and human interests with those of the wider world and ecology is, in the long run, good for all of us.
Thanks for listening to Shaping The Future. There are many more episodes being produced so please do subscribe to be a part of the conversation.
Find out more at: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
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In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am talking to DR Wolfgang Knorr - a climate scientist with over 25 years working for many agencies and laboratories around the world.
Currently, Wolfgang is a Senior Research Scientist at Lund University measuring CO2 fluxes from terrestrial vegetation and human activities among other things.
This conversation is to discuss the concerns that he and his colleagues have about the use or misuse of the term Net Zero and their concern that collectively we are setting ourselves up for failure in tackling the climate crisis.
The safest pathway to the future means a radical transformation of our societies and yet the net-zero narrative is one of incremental changes and technology that does not exist. In this critical moment when we are expected to do what is necessary, we have instead collectively chosen to ignore the risks and lock in a business-as-usual approach.
A link to the article we are discussed is included here: https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future - there are many more episodes coming. Please do subscribe on any major podcast channel to hear more.
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Welcome to Shaping The Future - in this special Earth Day Episode I am discussing the exciting prospect of how we can turn the global agricultural large-scale carbon source into a potential carbon sink.
This would mean bringing back our soils that have lost an estimated 50 billion tonnes of carbon since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Agriculture accounts for over 20% of our global carbon footprint so this is a big subject.
I am speaking to Julien Gervreau, Vice President of Sustainability at Jackson Family Wines, a company that has committed to the UN-backed pledge to Race To Zero emissions by 2050, if not then much sooner.
International Wineries For Climate Action (IWCA)
One business with the best intentions amounts to very little when we are talking about the scale of the climate issue. Jackson has joined forces with Familia Torres in Spain, and Symington Family Estates in Portugal as well as a growing number of other wineries committed to going beyond carbon neutral and turning agriculture green.
Here we discuss how the wine industry, which amounts to only 1.8% of global agriculture, can play an important role in driving a new trend of regenerative farming that is better for the biosphere and better for us as consumers.
Find out more about International Wineries For Climate Action on their website by click here: https://www.iwcawine.org/
More about the podcast: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
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Welcome to Shaping The Future. In this episode, I am speaking with Dr Sebastian Rosier about his work studying the tipping points in Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier.
Antarctica is of course absolutely huge and the Pine Island Glacier is just one part of it. If Pine Island collapsed into the ocean it would raise sea-levels by several metres which would be catastrophic for many coastal areas around the world.
Sebastian discusses his view of whether we have crossed this tipping point that is part of this complex system being impacted by the billions of tonnes of carbon pollution we pump into the atmosphere each year.
This all highlights that this is the decade we must get to work restoring the biosphere if we are avoid the consequences of extreme global heating.
Thanks for listening to Shaping The Future - subscribe to the climate series on any podcast channel or Youtube.
The next episode will be on Earth Day, 22nd April, discussing how regenerative agriculture has the potential to begin restoring the estimated 50 billion tonnes of carbon lost from our soils since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Taken to scale we have the potential to flip the soils from their current carbon source to carbon sink and sequester more carbon than we currently emit annually. The UN tells us to raise our ambition, so why not start with thinking big.
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This was recorded as a collaboration between my podcast Shaping The Future, Cambridge Zero and the Cambridge Festival. Below is more information. Includes excerpt with Dr Rowan Williams, Former Archbishop of Canterbury, on his thoughts on geoengineering research.
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Topic:
Professor David Keith speaks about why solar geoengineering must be researched to see if it can secure a safe climate of 1.5ºC as a high-value benefit to humanity.
David Keith:
David Keith is the foremost expert on solar geoengineering in the world having been involved in research for over 30 years. As well as being an adviser to Bill Gates, he is also on the Scope Ex team that is planning to carry out preliminary research this year to test the viability of aerosol particle injection into the stratosphere to cool the Earth.
This research has attracted widespread criticism from many prominent environmentalists and activists who say the unknown risks of geoengineering are too great.
In this interview with climate journalist, Nick Breeze, Keith counters claims that are presented and places solar geoengineering in the context of emissions reduction and carbon dioxide removal as a viable pathway to stabilising the climate.
DK: ”Carbon dioxide removal looks easier because people aren't looking seriously at who pays and what the environmental consequences are. I think now we will be starting to look at what deep emissions cuts look like, we will begin to see how hard it is going to be... Carbon Dioxide Removal is not there yet, it is not happening at large scale so it is easy to imagine this technological thing that allows us to do something in the future helps. I think the moral hazard is absolutely real."
DK: ”Solar geoengineering could be effective if you put reflective aerosols in the upper atmosphere. If it was ever done, it ought to be done in a way that was very even, north to south, south to west and technically that is doable... The evidence from all climate models and from other analogues is that if one did it in combination with emissions cuts that the climate risk could be reduced in ways that they could not be reduced by emissions cuts alone."
DK: ”We could, with solar geoengineering, keep temperatures under 1.5ºC with confidence and we could prevent the loss of the major ice sheets and keep the Arctic more the way it is. I think that is pretty high-value thing!"
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking to philosopher, author and climate activist Professor Rupert Read. Rupert has organised the ‘Philosophy Public Lecture Series 2021: Bad News is Good News? The Upside of Down’
The series seeks to ask if there is any silver lining from the tragedy of Covid and what can be learned in the context of living through ecological break-down.
Here we discuss some of the underlying themes and also what exactly is meant by the term ‘transformational adaptation’.
Other participants include the author of The Great Derangement, Amitav Ghosh, as well Richard Horton, Editor of the Lancet, and Sophie Scott-Brown, Nick Brooks and Joanne Clark.
To register for the series you can get tickets for free from the University of East Anglia website which I have linked to here.
Thanks for listening to Shaping The Future. Do subscribe on any major podcast channel to stay up to date.
Event details:
Tue 9 February 2021 | 18:15 - 20:15 | Online
Silver Linings From the Ecological Emergency - Amitav Ghosh (Author, The Great Derangement) in conversation with Rupert Read (UEA)
Tue 23 February 2021 | 18:15 - 20:15 | Online
Silver Linings From the National Scandal of Covid-19 - Richard Horton (Editor of the Lancet)
Tue 9 March 2021 | 18:15 - 20:15 | Online
Making the Most of Our Flawed Education System, At a Time of Global Crisis - Sophie Scott-Brown (UEA)
Tue 23 March 2021 | 18:15 - 20:15 | Online
Can We Adapt Transformatively To Climate Decline? - Round table discussion: Nick Brooks, Joanne Clarke and Rupert Read (all UEA)
UEA Registration: https://store.uea.ac.uk/product-catalogue/faculty-of-arts-and-humanities/philosophy-public-lecture-series-2021-bad-news-is-good-news-the-upside-of-down
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking to climate scientist Professor James Renwick, about the scale of the risks posed by the melting of the East and West Antarctic ice sheets due to human emissions from our relentless burning of fossil fuels.
Sea-level rise is the most obvious impact that will destroy cities around the world but there are also other less obvious impacts on agriculture and population displacement that can also lead to conflict if we choose to continue to do nothing.
James is based at Victoria University in New Zealand specialising in large-scale climate variations and was awarded the Prime Ministers Science prize by Jacinda Ardern in 2018.
Thanks for listening to Shaping The Future. In the next episode, I will be speaking to Philosopher Rupert Read about the University of East Anglia’s forthcoming Philosophy Public Lecture Series 2021: Bad News is Good News? The Upside of Down.
Related article: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/international/rethink-usa/rethink-sustainability
More on this podcast: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
Welcome to Shaping Te Future - in this episode, I am talking with Saima Wazed who is one of the 25 experts advising the World Health Organisation’s panel on mental health and she is also the founder of the Not For Profit Shuchona Foundation.
Recently Saima has also taken up the role of the Thematic Ambassador for the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), which represents 48 countries and 1.2 billion people, who are on the frontlines of climate change.
There is a widespread tendency among many of us to view the climate crisis as a future issue. Many people feel extreme anxiety about what the future holds and the lack of progress being made to change to a sustainable course.
The Climate Vulnerable Forum represents countries where populations are experiencing extreme impacts today, losing loved ones, livelihoods and their homes. Saima highlights the parallels between the impact of extreme climate and the pressures that vulnerable people from all walks of life are faced with.
The question we must ask is whether we can now start to use empathy as a tool to make the big leaps towards true sustainability beyond the confines of empty rhetoric?
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future - we have many more interviews to follow in this all-important year. Please subscribe on your preferred channel to catch each episode.
Podcast: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
https://www.facebook.com/ShuchonaFoundation/
Climate Vulnerable Forum: https://thecvf.org
In this special inserted episode of Shaping The Future, we are discussing the 15th National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (or NOAA) Arctic Report Card that was published this week giving a detailed overview of how climate is changing the Arctic.
Zack helps to break down the complexity of this annual report and highlights some of the major impacts that climate change is bringing to the polar Arctic region.
With melting sea ice, extreme wildfires and the expanding population of Bowhead whales, the Arctic is a region changing before our eyes and one that has direct implications for weather patterns at lower latitudes.
What is happening in the Arctic is literally the bellwether for the accelerating climate trends we see throughout the biosphere. It is also a ringing reminder for why we need to drastically cut emissions immediately and reduce atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.
Zack also gives us his personal view on whether geoengineering should be considered as part of a wider strategy for cooling or refreezing the Arctic.
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future - the Arctic report card is linked to in the notes below. Subscribe to the podcast on any of the main podcasting channels.
Download the Arctic Report Card: https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/sea-ice-loss-and-extreme-wildfires-mark-another-year-of-arctic-change
Follow Zack on Twitter: @ZLabe (https://twitter.com/ZLabe)
More about the podcast: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast and follow Nick Breeze on Twitter: @NickGBreeze
In this episode of Shaping The Future, we discuss the abrupt cooling of the Arctic in the late summer months that is preventing the widely anticipated further collapse of summer sea ice, whilst intensifying heatwaves at lower latitudes.
This new hypothesis was recently published by Professor Jennifer Francis from the Woodwell Climate Research Centre in Falmouth, Massachusetts and Dr Woo from Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and Institute of Atmospheric Sciences, Fudan University, in Shanghai.
It is not often anyone ever mentions negative feedback mechanisms when it comes to sea ice but this is exactly what is being suggested.
Jennifer Francis has also been involved in research that links sea ice loss to changes in jet stream patterns that impact our weather in the northern hemisphere, and this work further unpicks the complexity of how the Arctic climate system interacts with the rest of the world.
Thank you for listening to this podcast. In the next episode, I will be speaking with Dr Saima Wazed, who is the thematic ambassador of the Climate Vulnerable Forum representing Bangladesh.
Dr Wazed discusses how extreme climate events can render people immediately vulnerable from a mental health perspective as they struggle to come to terms with the losses that these incur from livelihoods to suffering the loss of loved ones or both.
A link to Dr’s Woo and Francis scientific paper is provided in the notes below.
Download: Why has no new record-minimum Arctic sea-ice extent occurred since September 2012?
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abc047
In this episode of Shaping The Future, we are discussing the incoming Biden administration’s agenda on climate change and whether they can achieve it. Dan Lashof is the US Director of the World Resources Institute based in Washington and has a long history spanning decades working in environmental policy. In this interview, Dan discusses the need for an integrated action plan that tackles the pandemic, racial inequality, and the economy, with environmental policy being a key driver of change. He also outlines the damage caused by the outgoing Republican administration across over 100 environmental safeguards, while stressing that the challenge going forward will be in achieving a transformation of society within the timeframe that science tells us we have. The US is a key component in global climate action and the leadership they take now will set the pace for change going forward. The issues discussed here will be the basis of a struggle that will span the next few decades of this challenging century. Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future. In the next episode I am speaking to Professor Jennifer Francis about her recent research looking at Arctic sea ice and northern hemisphere warming mechanisms. Please do subscribe on the podcast on all major channels. Dan's post: https://www.wri.org/news/biden-climate-action-priorities https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking to the Vatican’s head of ecology, Father Josh, who also happens to be coordinating the COVID-19 response within the Holy City.
In May 2020 Pope Francis declared a year of Laudato Si, building on the work of his encyclical on climate change in order to inspire exponential change across all walks of life, including all forms of Christianity, other faiths, and like-minded people around the world.
Through many advisors that make up the Pontifical academy of sciences among other advisers, church leaders are informed on climate and ecological science from some of the worlds most respected experts.
Father Josh iterates the connection between nature, humanity and climate, while emphasising that the poor who have not caused this crisis are often the worst impacted and that a just response to climate change, means putting their needs at forefront of our actions.
In this interview, Father Josh also reminds us that we must learn from the pandemic in order to reform our relationship with nature and live within planetary constraints.
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future - the next episode will feature the director of the World Resources Institute in Washington, Dan Lashof, discussing how impactful President-Elect Biden’s climate plans will likely be.
Here is the link about the Laudato Si' Year and LS Action Platform (you can find the brochure in seven languages):
http://www.humandevelopment.va/en/news/laudato-si-special-anniversary-year-plan.html
Cambridge Climate Series & Shaping The Future: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
In this episode of Shaping The Future I am talking to Wall Street energy analyst Dan Dicker about his new book, Turning Oil Green- A market based path to renewables.
Dan’s book gives us a lot of fascinating insights into how the oil markets work and how we should use the existing infrastructure of the markets and this toxic industry to literally turn oil green.
Like many of the complexities around the climate crisis, pathways to progress often appear counter-intuitive at the outset. What I found revelatory in Dan’s perspective is that collapsing the oil price can destabilise nations, increase poverty and potentially derail the uptake of renewables in parts of the world where energy demand is only ever going to rise.
One of the key issues around the emissions reduction and the transition to clean energy is the sheer scale of the challenge ahead. To successfully pass through the eye of this needle of opportunity and transform our world we must maximise our ability to meet these scales of enormity.
Could Dan’s approach set out in his book get us some of the way there? We surely cannot at this point, take anything off the table. The book is available from Amazon and I have placed a link below.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Shaping The Future. With the Pandemic causing devastating spikes in cases and deaths around the world, now could never be a more prescient time to reconsider the human journey. In the next episode, I speak to The Pope’s Coordinator of the Sector on Ecology at the Vatican, Father Joshtrum, about the pandemic, climate change and how this is the year of Laudato Si, the Pope’s encyclical on climate change.
Turning Oil Green By Dan Dicker: https://amzn.to/3pJx14t
More about The Cambridge Climate Lecture Series and Shaping The Future Podcast
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I’m discussing the risks posed by Geoengineering in the context of averting worst-case climate change, with author Professor Bill McGuire.
Bill's new book, Skyseed, is his first full length foray into writing fiction, from a distinguished career as Emeritus Professor of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at University College London as well as being one of Britain's leading volcanologists.
Skyseed presents the reader with a narrative of when humanity’s failure to address the climate crisis coupled with the political failure to say no to dangerous engineering interventions are gambled to reduce the impact of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
The scenario in the book is extreme but the story itself holds together very well as an existential consideration for where we are as an intelligent species on a living planet.
Reducing our carbon emissions in every aspect of life, from agriculture to transport, travel, or heating our homes, is of critical importance in trying to stabilise our climate.
Without an immediate thorough rethink, the risks of climate catastrophe, either by allowing global heating to run wild or by interventions that unleash any number of unintended consequences grow greater every day.
Thank you for listening to this podcast. We are recording more interviews with a wide range of experts, so please do subscribe on any of the major podcast channels or Youtube, all accessible from climateseries.com.
Buy Skyseed by Bill McGuire: https://amzn.to/3kd8IrN
Find out more about the Cambridge Climate Lecture Series: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
Welcome to Shaping The Future. In this episode I am speaking with Dr Zack Labe at Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science about the perilous heat trends reshaping the Arctic.
Zack is very well known on social media for bringing the climate data to life, in a series of visualisations and charts that depict extremes, such as we have seen recently in the Laptev Sea where the start of the sea ice formation is yet to begin.
In this discussion also we talk about improving the general publics’ overall literacy on climate change and why panicking is not the preferred course of action.
This is one in a series of interviews that seeks to gain insights into how scientists consider communicating the changes in the Earth system to wider audiences in order to promote greater awareness and understanding.
Thanks for listening to Shaping The Future. In the next episode, I will be speaking with Professor Bill McGuire about his new book Sky Seed. This novel tells the fictional-apocalyptic-story of a geoengineering experiment that has a chilling outcome.
You can subscribe on any major channel or listen on Youtube. For more information on CCLS and this series please visit climateseries.com.
Follow Zack's live updates on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZLabe
His personal website: https://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/
climatechange #climatecrisis #arcticchange #arctic #climatechangepodcast
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with Adrian Tait, a founding member of the Climate Psychology Alliance, (the CPA).
Adrian discusses how the linkages between events such as the US election and COVID-19 are compounding the anxiety that many people feel about the climate and ecological crisis.
In particular, he discusses Through The Door, a CPA initiative that has been utilised to help create a space where people who share anxieties about climate and ecology can come together. These groups are self-sustaining and may well offer the foundations of psychological resilience needed in ever more troubled times.
One key observation is that the pandemic offers insights into how a society under pressure responds. In particular, Adrian highlights how necessary it is to discern the conflicting desires between a return to a pre-COVID world founded on unsustainable principals and the opportunity to reset our value systems and gear them towards a more balanced and sustainable world.
Thank you for listening to ‘Shaping The Future’ - we have more episodes covering climate science, psychology, policy among the many complexities surrounding climate change. Please do subscribe on any of our channels to stay up to date.
Find out more about the Cambridge Climate Lecture Series (CCLS and Shaping The Future Podcast
Find out more about the CPA: https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/
Shaping The Future is now ranked in the Top 3 of Feedspot's Global Climate Change Podcast List
Welcome to Shaping The Future - In this episode, I am speaking to Rabbi Yonatan Neril in Jerusalem about his newly co-authored Eco-Bible, a book that reaches back through more than 2000 years of religious texts.
At a time when religion in the US is being politicised and views are expressed about Gods will in consuming the Earth, Eco Bible uses 450 identified texts that clearly demonstrate the role religious teachings have had in promoting stewardship of the Earth.
It has been my experience on numerous occasions of climate reporting that these underlying teachings exist across the multiple schools of faith that exist on the planet, from Christianity to Judaism, Islam and far far beyond.
With 6 billion humans today identifying with some form of religion, what Yonatan has to say about our existence as spiritual beings in a physical world, carries a lot of weight.
Thanks for listening to the Shaping The Future series. There are more podcasts being edited as we speak as we delve deeper into learning to live with and respond to the climate crisis. Please subscribe on any preferred channel to stay up to date.
Eco Bible https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/173533880X/ shows how the Bible and its great scholars embrace care for God's creation as a fundamental and living message. It is co-authored by Rabbi Yonatan Neril, who founded and directs The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development (ICSD), and Rabbi Leo Dee. who directed ICSD's faith and ecology programs, and graduated from Cambridge with a Masters in Engineering.
Purchase EcoBible on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Eco-Bible-Yonatan-Neril/dp/173533880X
More about Cambridge Climate Lecture Series and Shaping The Future: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
Welcome to Shaping The Future - in this episode, I am speaking with scientist and author, Professor Sarah Bridle, about her recently published book, ‘Food & Climate Change Without The Hot Air’ - Sarah’s book provides an invaluable perspective on the reality-versus-perception of the impact on climate change that our diet actually has.
Sarah not only gives examples of how misleading, ideals about food buying, preparation and consumption can be, she also explains how the UK government (and I suspect many others) could implement policies that would please local food producers, whilst bolstering public support and reducing climate emissions, all at the same time.
We are what we eat and our diets must be as sustainable as every other component of modern life. Sarah’s book is based on hard science but really does belong in the kitchen with all of our other reference books.
It’s available from all major retailers and the Ebook is actually a subsidised free download so there is no excuse for not digesting this important work.
Thank for listening to the podcast - please do subscribe on any of the major channels - we have plenty more interviews on the way and all of them have something positive to say around the discussion of how we shape a better future.
Note again that the Kindle edition is free: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Food-Climate-Change-without-hot-ebook/dp/B0873WWT6W
Welcome to Shaping The Future - in this episode, I am talking with meteorologist Scott Duncan, about how weather data is used to inform both the public and the organisations we rely on to insure us against the worst of life’s low-probability high-impact events..
We also discuss the recent Storm Alex that struck parts of western and southern Europe, in the context of frequency & extremity, as well as how the findings of meteorology can be used to alert those people who are in the path of future storms.
It can be easy to exist in a bubble of climate communications and forget that the vast majority of people have no idea of why and what we should be doing to prepare for and prevent the worst of future impacts.
The climate crisis means that many parts of the world will become uninsurable and this could be more closer to home than we think. Greater literacy in critical weather and climate science will help forge a better dialogue between people who are going to be impacted and the companies that realise future insurance is no longer viable.
I have added the links in notes so that you can follow Scott on Twitter and Instagram.
Thank you for listening - please do subscribe to Shaping The Future on any of the major podcast channels, or you can also listen on Youtube.
The next interview in the series will be with author Professor Sarah Bridle at the University of Manchester about her recent book ‘Food and Climate Change Without The Hot Air’ - a really worthwhile source of information for anyone interested in the links between food and climate emissions.
Follow Scott Duncan on Twitter here: @ScottDuncanwx
Follow Scott Duncan on Instagram here: @scottduncanwx
Find out more about Climate Series and the Shaping The Future Podcast here: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
Welcome to Shaping The Future and in this episode, I am talking to the Secretary-General of ICOS - The Integrated Carbon Observation System, Dr. habil. Werner L. Kutsch.
ICOS is a network of ocean and ground-based carbon monitoring stations that is giving us a wide spread of open-source scientific data, expanding our understanding of our changing environment.
Werner talks about how ICOS data can explain the collapse of a carbon sink from summer drought, as much as it can lead us towards cleaner air in cities and resilience to the climate impacts coming our way.
Also in the making, is a global system measuring & analysing atmospheric gases, that will, politics permitting, progress humanity towards a future that benefits all living creatures within the biosphere.
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future - our mission is to be as informed as we possibly can, to overcome the challenges wrought by human existence to date. There are many more interviews in the pipeline, please subscribe and share to stay up to date.
Find out more about ICOS: https://www.icos-cp.eu/
Shaping The Future is hosted by Nick Breeze as part of the Cambridge Climate Lecture Series.
https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
Doing our bit to avert the very worst of climate change means going beyond nodding along in agreement with those who are sounding the alarm about the dangers we all face from pumping hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon pollution into the atmosphere.
It means we individually and collectively have to make drastic changes in our lives to reduce carbon emissions to beyond zero.
How many of us cast our guilt into the recesses and shadows of the mind as we book that next flight, or order one more juicy beef steak that we lament is becoming harder to conscience?
A new initiative, The Climate App, is currently in development and aims to help all of us reduce our carbon consumption by socialising and gamifying the task of adjusting our lifestyles for the greater good.
There is much more to the Climate App than this and so in this special episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with project founder Sam Naef about who they are, what they need and when we can expect to participate in this unique effort to help mainstream positive climate action.
Please support the Indiegogo campaign to make the Climate App a reality and affirm our willingness to try everything possible to shape a better future.
Full URL to help fund this project: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-climate-app-create-a-carbon-cutting-movement--2#/
Full Climate App URL: https://www.theclimateapp.earth/
My URL for Shaping The Future Podcast: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
Welcome to Shaping The Future - this interview is with author and Cambridge polar ice scientist Professor Peter Wadhams.
WE discuss the common exponential factors that exist between the COVID-19 pandemic and in the positive feedbacks of the changing climate system.
WE also discuss the urgent need for carbon drawdown or greenhouse gas removal as it also known, to tackle the excess burden of 1 trillion tonnes of pollution that humanity has pumped into the biosphere.
Professor Wadhams is a leading authority on polar ice climate and is currently guest lecturing in Turin Polytechnic in Italy. This interview was recorded in May 2020 during the lockdown but has relevant input from Peter about how we must consider action to shape a better future.
Thanks for listening to this podcast series. We have many more interviews being recorded, discussing the most pressing challenges that humanity faces regarding our own survival.
Subscribe on any major podcast channel or on Youtube to stay up to date.
Welcome to Shaping The Future - this week I am speaking with long-term environmental campaigner and author, Sir Jonathon Porritt, about his new book ‘Hope In Hell’. I urge anyone looking for a comprehensive overview of the multifaceted subject of climate change, to read this excellent piece of work.
The book covers the science, policy, policy obstructions, as well as current and future challenges and the impact on the human psyche that we see emerging as a result.
In this interview, Sir Jonathon discusses the limits of the Paris Agreement and its roadmap of unbinding incremental change. By its design it allows governments to play loose with their Nationally Determined Contribution to reducing carbon emissions. He also discusses the perilous threat of melting polar ice-caps and glaciers that we are now watching in real-time.
In the midst of political ineptness, Jonathon has one final suggestion for how we can each take action in our own ways and in our own lives.
Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future. There are many more podcasts in the pipeline so please do subscribe on any major podcast channel or on Youtube.
https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Hope-in-Hell/Jonathon-Porritt/9781471193279
“Surely if you are going to be intervening with some risk in something where the risk is greater if you don’t intervene then let’s research the intervention!”
Welcome to this episode of Shaping The Future - From Pandemic to Climate Change. In this episode, I am speaking with Cambridge University’s Dr Hugh Hunt who is also working as part of the Centre For Climate Repair In Cambridge looking at ways to repair the climate.
Hugh makes the point that the risks of Geoengineering are less than the impacts from climate tipping points that we are facing if we don’t do it.
He also gives us an overview of the Centre For Climate Repair set-up by former UK Chief Government scientist, Sir David King, and discusses why funding on a scale to meet the enormity of the climate crisis means unconventional sources maybe be necessary.
The paper that this interview is based on coauthored by Hugh Hunt and Dan Bodansky can be downloaded free here: https://bit.ly/3ich6Yw
Thanks for listening to the podcast. Find out more here: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with Gail Bradbrook, environmental activist and co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, as the Autumn rebellion gains momentum in major cities across the UK. Gail talks about the XR demands for this rebellion and the power of activism for the individual and how that can lead to systemic change at the societal level. We finish discussing the potential for a global citizens assembly to be held in parallel during next years UN climate conference, COP26, that will be hosted in November in the UK. Thanks for listening, this podcast is available on all major podcasting channels and on Youtube. All the links are on climateseries.com. Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NickGBreeze Find out More at https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
In this episode, I interview NASA climate scientist and author, Peter Kalmus, about the extreme fires in California and Hurricane Laura that struck Louisiana. Peter talks about the underlying drivers of these frightening impacts that stem from our collective addiction to burning fossil fuels. He also talks very personally about his conscious decision to speak out about how terrified he is with regard to the worsening climate breakdown. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to Shaping The Future - In this episode, I am talking to Kontur CEO Arben Kane about How Big data is a vital resilience tool in responding to increased frequency and intensity of climate impacts.
Kontur was born out of a research project at the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in the US and is still evolving new perspectives for viewing information that can enhance how we live on Earth at a time when the viability of life itself is being called into question from Climate Change.
Arben and his team have been involved in mapping huge global disasters from earthquakes and hurricanes, with their work building the Pacific Disaster Centre, to more recently the spread of COVID-19 across the communities that span the globe.
Arben talks about how big data is a vital tool that when used correctly can be a huge asset to humanity and how his team are aiming to get around manipulation and security breaches by utilising distributed ledger technology among many other innovations.
There are many more episodes of the podcast being produced so please do subscribe on any of the main podcasting channels. Thanks for listening.
Visit the podcast website: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
Welcome to Shaping The Future - from pandemic to climate change and in this episode I am speaking with Dr. Renée Lertzman, a pioneer in bridging the gap between human psychology and the environmental and climate crisis.
Renée talks here about how climate professionals can become better leaders and show guidance by becoming attuned to those whom we engage with.
Renée also offers a set of principals developed as a tool-set for psychological survival at a period in time when uncertainty about the future can lead to existential anxiety.
Of course, this is also a time of opportunity, when radical new thinking can shape a vastly better future than the current horizon suggests.
Thanks for listening and please subscribe to the podcast to hear more in this series.
Dr Renée Lertzman's website.
Welcome to Shaping The Future - from pandemic to climate change (More info on the podcast series: Cambridge Climate Lecture Series website here)
In this episode, I am speaking with Philosopher and prominent Extinction Rebellion spokesperson, Dr Rupert Read, about his new booked titled, ‘Extinction rebellion: Insights from the inside’.
This is a collection of works, including essays, interviews, and internal XR memos, reflecting Rupert’s thoughts on what has been and what next for XR.
We discuss key concepts in the book including, how critical this time we are in right now is, and, how each one of us, as individuals and in collective groupings, can find agency to make a difference amid complex and disturbing times.
A link to purchase the book is here and proceeds from the book will be donated to Extinction Rebellion.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to Shaping the Future. In this episode, I am talking to Paul Keil who is a PhD candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology about the mysterious cold blob in the northern Atlantic Ocean.
This cold blob appears conspicuously on global temperature anomaly charts located south of Greenland.
It is currently the focus of a lot of research looking at the mechanisms that contribute to climate change and how these are being impacted by the billions of tonnes of CO2 we add annually to the atmosphere.
I have also added links below to two recent articles posted by the Carbon Brief and Mashable that look at Paul and his colleagues' research in more detail.
https://mashable.com/article/cold-blob-atlantic-ocean-climate-change/?europe=true
https://www.carbonbrief.org/scientists-shed-light-on-human-causes-of-north-atlantics-cold-blob
Visit https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast for more information on Shaping The Future podcast.
In this interview, I am speaking to Professor Penny Endersby, the Chief Executive Officer of the UK’s Met Office who is in charge of one of the most important climate change modelling computers in the world.
Penny takes us inside the climate model and reflects on the hard truths that the data outputs are telling us.
It is worth listening to Penny talk us through the Earth system simulator the UK has developed to navigate us through what is currently an undecided and uncertain future.
Quotes:
"...we can say, ‘this thing you might have seen once every 200 years in preindustrial times you are now going to see once in 50 years’, which I think was roughly the frequency for the Australian wildfires as we are at the moment, and in the future you are going to see them once in 10 or once in 5 years, depending on the particular emissions pathway."
"...my headline message to anybody is, the faster we can undertake the mitigation, the better it will be and if we can’t hit 1.5ºC we still want to hit 2ºC and 2 is better than 3 and 3 is better than 4!
So we should try and the time for action is now. It is urgent to do something."
https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast
Prof. Jason Box: "It's not too hyperbolic to talk about Mad Max!"
Welcome to Shaping The Future Podcast. In this episode, I am speaking to Professor Jason Box at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. We are discussing how the colossal Greenland ice sheet is changing as the Earth warms and what impact this will have on the global climate system.
So much of Jason’s work bridges the void between climate science in obscure corners of the planet, and the risks posed by pollution from industry, as well as how we in wealthier countries conduct our lives.
Shaping the future means envisioning the world we want and committing to a pathway to achieve it. In that vane, we end this discussion by considering the social movements that are emerging as part of the growing awareness of the necessity to change.
Thank you for listening, please do subscribe on whatever podcast channel you use to hear more forthcoming episodes.
Welcome to Shaping The Future climate change podcast - In this episode, I speak with Professor Kevin Anderson who is Deputy Director of the UK’s Tyndale Centre for climate change research, he is also a part-time professor at the University of Uppsala in Sweden and even squeezes in a day a week at a university in Norway.
In this episode, we discuss who are the culprits of climate action failure, how coronavirus has shown us we are all equal in society and how solving current inequality is an essential component of solving the climate crisis.
In picking these complex topics apart, we discuss the evolving role of civil society and climate activism by academics that is actually reinforcing the status quo and committing us to fail on our Paris commitments.
Kevin, like Katharine Hayhoe in the previous episode, highlights the job losses and those suffering in industries that are high polluting but nonetheless provide incomes for families. In terms of post-lockdown, Kevin emphasises that it is a choice whether we go back to high emitting business as usual.
Importantly Kevin is not confident that we can hold the temperature rise to 1.5ºC and that it would require serious mitigation efforts combined with effective carbon drawdown technologies (that do not currently exist) in order to achieve it.
Most of all we have to take on board that change in society required to meet these emission reduction challenges are only needed by the top ten per cent. The majority of people are not emitting high amounts of carbon. This again feeds into the need for an agenda of equality and a new narrative of fairness that perhaps the pandemic can make us more aware of.
In the next episode in the series, I will be speaking to Professor Jason Box from the Geological Survey of Denmark. Jason is a Greenland ice sheet expert and is going to share his insights into the changes happening in Greenland and the impact this could have on the overall climate system.
You can also follow Nick Breeze on Twitter here: @NickGBreeze
Professor Katharine Hayhoe is well-known the world over for her clear communications on the risks posed by climate change and why these risks and can be addressed in a non-political and non-partisan way. Katharine is an atmospheric scientist, the Political Science Endowed Professor in Public Policy and Public Law at Texas Tech University in the US and directs their Climate Center.
Life on Zoom
In the period of lockdown, Katharine discusses how technology has played a critical role human interactions, from the emotional experience of her grandmother's death to more passive interactions such as knitting or just staying in touch with family and friends. This all leads her to rename social distancing so it becomes physical distancing with social connectivity.
COVID-19 and carbon emissions
There is much talk about how the pandemic is good for the environment but, as Katharine points out, this has to be taken in context.
Because we are not pumping out so much pollution as normal, we are still adding to the atmospheric burden of greenhouse gases.
Air quality linked to human suffering
Another linkage from the pandemic pause is the cleaner air that has been a tangible benefit of reducing nearly all transport to a small fraction of what it was before.
Low-balling climate change
Climate scientists have always produced scenarios based on different estimates of outcomes from climate forcing and Earth system sensitivity. Katharine explains how typically scientists have been low-balling the speed and severity of climate change.
The 3 choices that humanity has to select from are mitigation, adaptation, or suffering. It turns out we will likely be forced to select all three but the balance of each is still up to us. Katharine gives her view on how this current crisis informs us to best face the future.
Climate change and politics
In the US and UK especially, climate change has been forced into a political framing in order to try and make conservatives think that the threat is not real or very serious.
Now, with impacts so tangibly in our faces, from the loss of the polar ice caps and ice sheets like in Greenland, or the fires in the Amazon, Australia among many other places, people are realising this is real and anxiety about the future is commonplace. What can we do about it?
The world won’t end in 2030
There is an emerging narrative that if the world does not decarbonise by 2030 then we will experience the apocalypse. Katharine Hayhoe discusses the importance of having a vision of the future that balances the reality of climate change with the outcome that we want to see and that we can collectively and individually work towards.
Collapsing oil, personal suffering and policy
Katharine discusses how the collapse of the oil price is impacting thousands of people in the oil industry who are losing their jobs and facing financial hardship in a very uncertain time. These are not bad people but rather a part of our society who are trying to support their families. What can we do to help them transition to new sectors?
Despite this, lobbyists for oil-producing regions like Alberta in Canada are trying to roll back environmental taxes aimed at starting the transition to clean energy. Katharine explains why carbon taxes are still part of the solution, perhaps more so than ever before.
Official webpage: https://climateseries.com/climate-change-podcast