Latest / UK Column Radio / UK Column News Podcast 14th April 2025

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UK Column News Podcast 14th April 2025 · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Good afternoon.
0:09
Speaker 2: It's just gone one o'clock on Monday the fourteenth of
0:12
Speaker 2: April twenty twenty five. Welcome to UK column News. I'm
0:15
Speaker 2: your host Charles Mannett. Joining me in the studio today
0:18
Speaker 2: is Ben Rubin. Welcome to the program Ben, Thank you, Charles,
0:21
Speaker 2: and via video link Diane rasmuson mcaddie from Edinburgh and
0:26
Speaker 2: Alex Kreele from Moscow.
0:28
Speaker 1: Now.
0:28
Speaker 2: Among the topics to be discussed today are geoengineering, Russia,
0:34
Speaker 2: local media and plenty besides. But we're going to begin
0:38
Speaker 2: the program with steel and the state of emergency that
0:42
Speaker 2: the government have described around the situation concerning the jing
0:47
Speaker 2: Ye Steel Company at released British Steel as it's been known,
0:51
Speaker 2: having taken it over from Tata Steel in twenty twenty,
0:54
Speaker 2: and the emergency measures that the government have taken to ensure.
0:59
Speaker 2: So they say that blast furnaces will keep burning in
1:01
Speaker 2: Scunthorpe and that there will be the saving of three
1:05
Speaker 2: thousand jobs. Now the government have put out a statement,
1:11
Speaker 2: as I say, to confer upon us the idea that
1:15
Speaker 2: they are the salvation in this particular circumstance, statement from
1:20
Speaker 2: the Prime Minister in which he concludes by saying a
1:22
Speaker 2: secure future a Britain rebuilt with British steel in the
1:26
Speaker 2: national interest. We'll go on to qualify exactly what it
1:29
Speaker 2: is he might mean by the national interest, but I
1:32
Speaker 2: think it's worth HARKing back to the manifesto that they
1:35
Speaker 2: put out last year and to ask what effect the
1:39
Speaker 2: committed two point five billion pounds to steel has actually
1:44
Speaker 2: had and whether this apparent crisis could have been averted.
1:47
Speaker 2: But also when considering the numbers, on the very next
1:50
Speaker 2: line of the manifesto was the commitment to the most
1:55
Speaker 2: pointless exercise yet described by government, which of course was
1:59
Speaker 2: a one billion honed commitment to the capture of carbon dioxide. Now,
2:05
Speaker 2: the Business Secretary of Jonathan Reynolds, has conducted many interviews,
2:09
Speaker 2: of course, in the wake of this, and I'm just
2:10
Speaker 2: going to play a short clip from his interview on
2:14
Speaker 2: Sky News with Trevor Phillips which gives us a bit
2:16
Speaker 2: more of an insight into what might really be at
2:19
Speaker 2: play here.
2:21
Speaker 3: I can't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't personally bring a Chinese
2:25
Speaker 3: company into o steal sector.
2:26
Speaker 1: You would not bring a I wouldn't.
2:29
Speaker 3: I think steelers a very sensitive area. I don't know
2:33
Speaker 3: the Boris Johnson government when they did this what exactly
2:35
Speaker 3: the situation was. But I think it's a sensitive.
2:39
Speaker 1: A sensitive areas, what about nuclear power for example.
2:43
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to on an interview make that kind
2:46
Speaker 3: of specific determination, but I think we can't ignore China.
2:51
Speaker 3: I mean, China's fifth of the global economy. You know,
2:53
Speaker 3: what they do has an impact on us. And where
2:55
Speaker 3: we can have areas where we can cooperate in our
2:59
Speaker 3: mutual interest, I think that is a good.
3:01
Speaker 1: But there's a high trust bar now, isn't there.
3:03
Speaker 2: Yes, So he was pushed further and further during that
3:09
Speaker 2: interview in effect to call out China as being in
3:14
Speaker 2: some way a state threat to the United Kingdom and
3:17
Speaker 2: indeed to the steel industry and how critical steel is
3:20
Speaker 2: as an overall part of industry in the UK and
3:24
Speaker 2: a lot else besides. Now, in order to qualify all this,
3:28
Speaker 2: I think it's worth referring back to what the Labor
3:30
Speaker 2: government put out last year when they described their steel strategy,
3:34
Speaker 2: the Plan for Steel, which was in the form of
3:37
Speaker 2: a consultation, but within that they said that as well
3:40
Speaker 2: as supporting our mission of making the UK a clean
3:43
Speaker 2: energy superpower, steel is a fundamental component in activities such
3:47
Speaker 2: as the construction of wind turbines, manufacturing the next generation
3:51
Speaker 2: of electric or autonomous vehicles, or building the infrastructure needed
3:55
Speaker 2: to sustain our digital economy. Now each of those things
3:58
Speaker 2: I think bears a little bit more scrutiny, and that's
4:01
Speaker 2: why we will go to UK Steel, who have published
4:05
Speaker 2: a great many documents on the steel industry of the
4:08
Speaker 2: United Kingdom in the last few years, and in particular
4:11
Speaker 2: they refer to the description of the offshore what's called
4:16
Speaker 2: the offshore wind boom. So it's interesting to note then
4:19
Speaker 2: that they say in the last five years admittedly, of
4:22
Speaker 2: course four of those have not been under a labor government,
4:24
Speaker 2: but nonetheless, in the last five years less than two
4:27
Speaker 2: percent of steel used in UK wind farms was fabricated
4:31
Speaker 2: in the UK, and almost none made using UK sorry,
4:38
Speaker 2: using UK made steel. Now that's just part of the story,
4:41
Speaker 2: of course. The other bit of it is that this
4:43
Speaker 2: has bar and large come from China. And again there
4:46
Speaker 2: is this enormous discrepancy between what the various government organizations
4:50
Speaker 2: say and what they do. And we refer back to
4:54
Speaker 2: the off quoted Richard dear Love saying that China presents
4:57
Speaker 2: a state threat via these sorts of means, and yet,
4:59
Speaker 2: of of course, wind is never one area in which
5:02
Speaker 2: we're to consider that China does in fact pose such
5:06
Speaker 2: a threat. We go on to look further at UK
5:09
Speaker 2: steel and indeed on the electricity prices, and this way
5:12
Speaker 2: we get perhaps closer to the heart of it. This
5:16
Speaker 2: is a comparison there with the UK circled on the right,
5:19
Speaker 2: showing that the cost of energy in order to produce
5:22
Speaker 2: steel in this country is significantly higher than France and Germany.
5:27
Speaker 2: And of course this goes back to the net zero agenda,
5:31
Speaker 2: and if anyone was in any doubt as to its purpose,
5:34
Speaker 2: it seems now beyond any sort of contradiction really that
5:39
Speaker 2: the agenda play with net zero is to destroy the
5:43
Speaker 2: means by which industry, economy, and indeed the whole country
5:47
Speaker 2: can run in a sensible manner. And we see this
5:52
Speaker 2: time and again. So not only are we looking at
5:55
Speaker 2: an industry that relies on the production of steel by
5:59
Speaker 2: the use of cocaine coal, which of course is something
6:02
Speaker 2: that the government shut down by not giving the go
6:04
Speaker 2: ahead to a mine in Whitehaven which would have produced
6:08
Speaker 2: fuel with which to run this plant. Because of net
6:12
Speaker 2: zero the government say that they're still committed to net zero,
6:15
Speaker 2: but in a worldwide sense, so whilst they can say
6:18
Speaker 2: that we won't do it here, we will absolutely have
6:20
Speaker 2: to do it elsewhere in order that we get put
6:22
Speaker 2: in such a vulnerable position as this, with of course
6:26
Speaker 2: a large quantity of cocon coal having to come in
6:28
Speaker 2: from Japan as part of what's being described as a
6:31
Speaker 2: rescue package. And I we'll just have a quick look
6:33
Speaker 2: at the legislation itself, because it is perfectly extraordinary. As
6:37
Speaker 2: I say, the House Commons, both outs of Parliament met
6:39
Speaker 2: on Saturday, which hasn't happened since April nineteen eighty two
6:42
Speaker 2: with the then emergency.
6:46
Speaker 1: Relating to the Falklands.
6:48
Speaker 2: Now, I would like to draw attention to this particular
6:52
Speaker 2: clause which gives powers to the Minister of entering using
6:57
Speaker 2: force if necessary the premises were specific assets are situated,
7:02
Speaker 2: so effectively this is granting control of any assets pertaining
7:06
Speaker 2: to steel. It also suggests in terms of the intervention
7:11
Speaker 2: that these assets are either to be used or not
7:16
Speaker 2: to be used in a particular way, and indeed the
7:19
Speaker 2: consequences are spelt out too. If these are not adhered to,
7:23
Speaker 2: then the person who committing the offense is liable to
7:26
Speaker 2: be preceded against and punished accordingly. Seems unnecessarily strong language
7:31
Speaker 2: when we're talking about trying to rescue a business one
7:34
Speaker 2: step short of nationalizing it. And this was articulated in fact,
7:38
Speaker 2: or at least pushed back against by many people, particularly
7:40
Speaker 2: in the House of Lords.
7:41
Speaker 1: We've got Lord.
7:42
Speaker 2: Moylan here who said that it is not, in fact nationalization.
7:46
Speaker 2: It is in some ways almost worse. It is the
7:48
Speaker 2: confiscation and control of a private company with no safeguards
7:52
Speaker 2: and no sunset clause. The other point made in the
7:55
Speaker 2: House of Lords among many was why steal steel industry
8:00
Speaker 2: which has failed time and again? Why should steel be
8:03
Speaker 2: propped up? And the reason I asked that question, or
8:05
Speaker 2: at least amplify that question from the House of Lords,
8:08
Speaker 2: is that of course steel is certainly on the way.
8:11
Speaker 2: And again going back to the net zero agenda, the
8:15
Speaker 2: production of electric vehicles use increasing amounts of aluminium as
8:18
Speaker 2: opposed to steel. There's no evidence really to support the
8:21
Speaker 2: fact that steel should be supported over any other industry
8:25
Speaker 2: than than any other sorry industry. Just to qualify that.
8:31
Speaker 2: The other point to make is in terms of jobs,
8:33
Speaker 2: we're looking at electricity and indeed why electricity is not
8:38
Speaker 2: going to be more widely available in the course to
8:40
Speaker 2: support the constant rollout of artificial intelligence and the need
8:44
Speaker 2: to support that. And of course we look at the
8:48
Speaker 2: Institute for Public Policy Research citing the fact that possible
8:52
Speaker 2: eight million UK jobs are likely to be lost in
8:56
Speaker 2: pursuing this agenda, which makes one wonder, just speculatively, whether
9:01
Speaker 2: we are looking towards the state control of industries as
9:06
Speaker 2: a precedent in order to be able to do things
9:09
Speaker 2: like introduce digital wages. But I think there's a lot
9:12
Speaker 2: more to come out about this, and it certainly looks
9:15
Speaker 2: like it could be a sop to America, with whom
9:18
Speaker 2: we've been in lockstep for many months now since the
9:20
Speaker 2: Trump reelection and inauguration, And of course to be seen
9:26
Speaker 2: to be bashing China in order to attain perhaps more
9:30
Speaker 2: favorable conditions than the ten percent tariff that we have
9:33
Speaker 2: been given could also be a large fact. There's a
9:35
Speaker 2: lot more to come out on this, and we're now
9:37
Speaker 2: going to go across to Diane to look at behavioral change.
9:43
Speaker 4: Yes, hello Charles, Hello Ben, Hello everyone today, it's great
9:46
Speaker 4: to be here. So last week was the United Nations
9:49
Speaker 4: Behavioral Science Week. It took place across forty six UN
9:55
Speaker 4: entities and there were fifteen events throughout the week.
9:58
Speaker 5: Behavioral Science.
9:59
Speaker 4: If you have heard of it, if you watch your
10:01
Speaker 4: K column, you've heard about it several times because of
10:04
Speaker 4: Brian's wonderful coverage about applied behavioral psychology, which is an
10:08
Speaker 4: example of behavioral science, is part of what is called
10:11
Speaker 4: UN version two point zero. This was originally covered on
10:15
Speaker 4: the twenty sorry the thirty first of July twenty twenty
10:18
Speaker 4: three edition of UK column News.
10:20
Speaker 5: If you would like to go.
10:20
Speaker 4: Back and get the basics, but essentially the policy, according
10:24
Speaker 4: to the website of You and two point zero says
10:26
Speaker 4: that halfway to twenty thirty, the world is not on.
10:29
Speaker 5: Track to achieve the SDGs.
10:31
Speaker 4: To accelerate progress, everyone needs to rethink, refocus and recharge.
10:35
Speaker 4: You in two point zero is a vision of a
10:37
Speaker 4: modernized UN system, cutting edge skills and forward thinking culture
10:41
Speaker 4: that enable you and entities to better contribute to the
10:43
Speaker 4: quest for the SDGs. These ongoing internal transformations are designed
10:48
Speaker 4: around a quintet of change. Now, personally, I love music.
10:52
Speaker 4: This is not a musical quintet, but the quintet that
10:54
Speaker 4: it defines that are five steps to this change are innovation, data, digital,
11:00
Speaker 4: which includes helping with inclusive online education platforms, foresight, and finally,
11:06
Speaker 4: of course, behavioral science enabling better choices. They call it
11:10
Speaker 4: b side BESCI and they have a hashtake with pay
11:13
Speaker 4: use that's kind of their shortcut. So what happened in
11:17
Speaker 4: behavioral science weeek? Well, they were all webinars from as
11:19
Speaker 4: far as I could tell. I watched some of them
11:21
Speaker 4: just so that you don't have to. I don't like
11:23
Speaker 4: to do that to the viewers, but there will be
11:25
Speaker 4: a link in the show notes if you would like
11:26
Speaker 4: to see some things. I've got a short clip from
11:29
Speaker 4: one of the sessions that was called getting Started with
11:31
Speaker 4: Behavioral Science. This took place on Wednesday last week. The
11:35
Speaker 4: speaker here is Sonia Guevrierro, and she said she works
11:38
Speaker 4: in the education sector at UNESCO, So let's hear what
11:41
Speaker 4: she had to say.
11:43
Speaker 6: Well, we think that a behavioral science approach can improve
11:46
Speaker 6: the uptake of data and scientific evidence for decision making
11:49
Speaker 6: and education. And we think that, but we think that
11:53
Speaker 6: one of the first things we need to do is
11:55
Speaker 6: to sensitize colleagues about this so to get to start,
12:00
Speaker 6: what we decided to do was to begin with the
12:03
Speaker 6: landscape review of how the behavioral sciences have informed the
12:06
Speaker 6: work of other international organizations such as UNICEF, the World
12:11
Speaker 6: Health Organization, and the World Bank. A very preliminary scan
12:16
Speaker 6: is showing that behavioral sciences have been used within education projects,
12:23
Speaker 6: but used primarily for health interventions. Still, this shows potential
12:30
Speaker 6: that we can in fact use behavioral sciences and education projects,
12:35
Speaker 6: in particular around getting teachers to change their teaching practices,
12:39
Speaker 6: which is a major challenge. So for example, teachers might
12:44
Speaker 6: still be using some outdata teaching practices such as asking
12:49
Speaker 6: kids to memorize content which would appear in an exam.
12:56
Speaker 4: So what we're seeing here is the use of applied
12:59
Speaker 4: behaviors like howlogy to change how teachers teach, taking away
13:02
Speaker 4: the inspiration and the past that they might have had
13:04
Speaker 4: from teaching in the past, but they're going to teach
13:08
Speaker 4: them how they should be teaching instead. And also to
13:10
Speaker 4: make sure that students don't have to do things like
13:12
Speaker 4: take exams, because that's not fair to students, right, we
13:15
Speaker 4: wouldn't want to make sure that they knew anything. Another
13:17
Speaker 4: example of the use of behavioral science in You and
13:20
Speaker 4: two point zero is a behavioral change service called Verified.
13:24
Speaker 4: Apparently this is quote delivering science based information in times
13:29
Speaker 4: of crises in an era of prolific mis and disinformation.
13:33
Speaker 4: There's a bit of the information on the quintin of
13:36
Speaker 4: change website. It is you and initiative, but as I said,
13:40
Speaker 4: it's got a part you win, but also part this organization.
13:44
Speaker 5: Called Purpose, and we can put a screenshot of Purpose
13:48
Speaker 5: is a hope page on the screen here.
13:50
Speaker 4: It is apparently working hard to cut through the noise
13:53
Speaker 4: around global crises and deliver critical fact based advice and information.
13:57
Speaker 4: As they say here on they're very obvious blos and
14:00
Speaker 4: white homepage. They use creative storytelling and campaigns to move
14:03
Speaker 4: people to remake the world. Don't forget it, very large letters.
14:08
Speaker 4: Other partners of Purpose include the Melinda Gates Foundation and
14:12
Speaker 4: the Rockefeller Foundation. Of course, as I was looking into
14:15
Speaker 4: behavioral science weeek, I ended up coming across something that
14:18
Speaker 4: I had never heard of before, which is the United
14:20
Speaker 4: Nations University, or as I'll call it, you in UNI.
14:24
Speaker 4: As a foreign professor who now watches what globalists do
14:26
Speaker 4: instead of teaching at a university, I was surprised to
14:29
Speaker 4: find out that you and UNI existed, so I decided
14:32
Speaker 4: to look into it a bit more. Their homepage says
14:35
Speaker 4: they work on evidenced based solutions for a sustainable future,
14:39
Speaker 4: because of course they do. Looking into a little bit more,
14:42
Speaker 4: I found that the university encompasses thirteen institutes located in
14:45
Speaker 4: twelve countries around the world. Their research and academic activities
14:49
Speaker 4: are aligned with every sustainable development goal, which are people, planet, prosperity,
14:55
Speaker 4: peace and partnerships. So of course this is all starting
14:58
Speaker 4: to sound familiar because they say this same thing everywhere.
15:01
Speaker 4: Their headquarters is based in Tokyo, they have institutes in
15:05
Speaker 4: eleven other countries, so of course it's global. Students, if
15:08
Speaker 4: you want to be a student at this university, you
15:10
Speaker 4: can undertake research that links directly with the work of
15:13
Speaker 4: the un and its agencies. For example, you can get
15:16
Speaker 4: a PhD in sustainability science. You can do a part
15:19
Speaker 4: time PhD in the Netherlands. You can get a PhD
15:22
Speaker 4: in Innovation, Economics and governance for sustainable development. And you
15:26
Speaker 4: can also get an MSc in sustainability or public policy
15:30
Speaker 4: and human development, or the Geography of environmental risks and
15:33
Speaker 4: Human security and there are also non degree courses and
15:36
Speaker 4: other training. If you want to know how much you
15:39
Speaker 4: would have to pay to do this, it varies by institute. So,
15:43
Speaker 4: just like me, You and UNI is celebrating its fiftieth
15:46
Speaker 4: birthday this year. Here's a quote from the UN Secretary
15:49
Speaker 4: General Antonio Guterros, who's celebrating the birthday, and on his
15:53
Speaker 4: website he said, for half a century, university leaders, staff,
15:57
Speaker 4: students and alumni have driven peace progress, bridging the worlds
16:00
Speaker 4: of education, research and policy, by acting as a trusted
16:04
Speaker 4: source for evidence based policy making, and by uniting the
16:07
Speaker 4: world through knowledge and partnerships that address our most pressing
16:10
Speaker 4: global challenges. The United Nations University is truly multilateralism in action.
16:17
Speaker 5: So I found this.
16:19
Speaker 4: You and You Merit, which is one of the institutes
16:22
Speaker 4: talking about their contribution to the Behavioral Change Week last week,
16:26
Speaker 4: and that's how I found out about what was going
16:29
Speaker 4: on at.
16:29
Speaker 5: The U in UNI. So just to see what it
16:31
Speaker 5: would be like if you wanted to be a student
16:34
Speaker 5: at You and Uni, I've got a couple of clips
16:36
Speaker 5: from their YouTube channel.
16:38
Speaker 4: This one is called from a lecture called a Cup
16:41
Speaker 4: of Tea for the SDGs.
16:42
Speaker 5: So let's learn from this lady, so how the STG
16:47
Speaker 5: could help.
16:49
Speaker 7: Navigate these complex DT range and actually the STG would
16:54
Speaker 7: help t tell it story.
16:58
Speaker 5: They are the impact.
16:59
Speaker 7: The STG are the impact that the t industries and
17:02
Speaker 7: we as a t csomer working to achieve the success
17:07
Speaker 7: of achieving a sustainable the sectors actually hinge and our
17:10
Speaker 7: ability to balance SEG twelve, which is responsible consumption and
17:15
Speaker 7: productions and in our effort to enable economic development or
17:21
Speaker 7: set eight for the tea small holders and in a
17:24
Speaker 7: way that can conserve the life online.
17:27
Speaker 5: Which is SET fifteen.
17:29
Speaker 7: So all of these effort should be done within the
17:35
Speaker 7: effort to alleviate poverty SEG one and to achieve food
17:39
Speaker 7: security and set two and to combat climate change City thirteen.
17:47
Speaker 4: So there's your lecture if you wanted to know what
17:49
Speaker 4: kind of research they do before you decided to apply.
17:52
Speaker 4: Here's a video from February explaining a new report called
17:56
Speaker 4: Disaster Risks twenty twenty five turning over a new leaf
18:00
Speaker 4: which was written by you in UNIS Institute for Environment
18:02
Speaker 4: and Human Security, and it found that redefining what we
18:05
Speaker 4: value is one of five fundamental changes that humanity needs
18:09
Speaker 4: to make to shift towards a more sustainable and resilient world.
18:13
Speaker 5: So let's watch the summary video.
18:17
Speaker 8: The world faces many serious threats climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss,
18:24
Speaker 8: and inequalities, to name a few. We know what needs
18:28
Speaker 8: to be done to change calls, so why aren't we
18:31
Speaker 8: doing it? The answer lies in society's deeper structures and
18:35
Speaker 8: assumptions that create the outcomes we see all around us. Take,
18:41
Speaker 8: for instance, spraying aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight
18:46
Speaker 8: back to space. This attempt to limit global warming is
18:49
Speaker 8: called solar geoengineering. Some governments and companies are exploring it
18:54
Speaker 8: as a way to combat climate change, but the actions
18:58
Speaker 8: of a few could lead to negative impacts for others
19:00
Speaker 8: around the world, unpredictable weather patterns, food and water, insecurity.
19:06
Speaker 8: It's also a superficial fix that fails to address the
19:09
Speaker 8: underlying causes of climate change. We prioritize our own benefits,
19:14
Speaker 8: willing to accept negative impacts elsewhere. To truly solve the problem,
19:20
Speaker 8: we need to look at how we interact with each
19:22
Speaker 8: other across the globe. When we move beyond self serving
19:25
Speaker 8: solutions and recognize our own responsibility, the real solution is clear.
19:31
Speaker 8: Cutting out emissions directly by phasing out fossil fuels, we
19:37
Speaker 8: have the power to change the world for the better.
19:41
Speaker 8: Let's turn over a new leave.
19:47
Speaker 4: So apparently we're going to spray the skies eventually, and
19:51
Speaker 4: we're also going to phase out fossil fuels, which we
19:54
Speaker 4: know your storm announced that last week. I have a
19:56
Speaker 4: little bit more later on in the news. I'm geo engineering,
19:59
Speaker 4: but right now, at Charles, what do you think would you.
20:00
Speaker 5: Go to you in UNI.
20:04
Speaker 2: If you will have recruited to the university and that segment, Dan,
20:07
Speaker 2: I'm guessing probably not that many, but thank you very much.
20:09
Speaker 2: None of the last note, Ben, you're going to take
20:11
Speaker 2: aus down to the sort of local level. On a
20:12
Speaker 2: related note, absolutely and directly related note.
20:16
Speaker 1: Thanks for that, Diane. That was fascinating.
20:18
Speaker 9: And I talk a lot about this interplay between money
20:23
Speaker 9: and power, power and money, which is what is projecting
20:26
Speaker 9: itself across us at the moment, and the un is
20:29
Speaker 9: all about power and that word was actually used several
20:32
Speaker 9: times in that video that you ended up on there
20:35
Speaker 9: talking about power and essentially these tools, these psychological tools,
20:40
Speaker 9: these propaganda tools that they've developed around behavioral psychology, behavioral economics.
20:44
Speaker 9: There are lots of different terms for it. Nudging essentially
20:47
Speaker 9: is the one that I think has probably got most
20:50
Speaker 9: understanding across the broader population. They're all about projecting power,
20:54
Speaker 9: and they're all about ultimately transforming humanity to fit into
20:58
Speaker 9: They're very narrow understan standing of what the world should
21:01
Speaker 9: be like, right, and what you end up with these
21:04
Speaker 9: bureaucrats in an office in New York, like the women
21:08
Speaker 9: in the first film that you showed, who think that
21:09
Speaker 9: they've got the right and the capacity to transform everything everywhere.
21:14
Speaker 9: It's really astonishing when you get into it, and it's
21:16
Speaker 9: actually Orwellian a great quote from George Orwell nineteen eighty four,
21:22
Speaker 9: which is power is tearing human minds to pieces and
21:25
Speaker 9: putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.
21:28
Speaker 9: And I think as a perfect summary of what we're
21:30
Speaker 9: looking at here with these applied psychology approaches. And this
21:34
Speaker 9: quote always reminds me of this fella, David haupens Cbe,
21:38
Speaker 9: who was one of Blair's top aids during his pomp
21:43
Speaker 9: really the Blair years two thousand and one to two
21:45
Speaker 9: thousand and seven, and then also the founder and CEO
21:50
Speaker 9: of the Behavioral Insights team, the Nudge Unit, which is
21:54
Speaker 9: where most of this stuff came from, will certainly where
21:56
Speaker 9: it was brought into broader use, cross government and elsewhere.
22:02
Speaker 9: He's an interesting character. Help and I don't use that
22:04
Speaker 9: quote from all well lightly right, because actually done some
22:09
Speaker 9: deep digging on Halpern, and one of the things that
22:11
Speaker 9: you find out is that he's an amateur artist, a painter,
22:15
Speaker 9: and these are the types of things that he's producing.
22:18
Speaker 9: You can see there at the bottom as an example
22:20
Speaker 9: of one of his artworks. So he's very clearly into
22:23
Speaker 9: tearing humanity to pieces and putting us together again in
22:26
Speaker 9: new shapes of his own choosing right. You know, he's
22:29
Speaker 9: a psychologist. Maybe you should psychoanalyze yourself, mister halpen it's
22:33
Speaker 9: kind of terrifying that image. He also mentions in that
22:36
Speaker 9: same interview, we'll put a link to that so you
22:38
Speaker 9: can go and watch it. I'd highly recommend it. He
22:41
Speaker 9: mentions the debt that he has to cast Sunstein. He
22:45
Speaker 9: says that Nudge is really related and built on the
22:48
Speaker 9: ideas of Cass Sunstein, who is the author of, amongst
22:51
Speaker 9: other things, conspiracy Theories and other dangerous ideas and democracy
22:56
Speaker 9: and the problem of free speech, which will become particularly
22:59
Speaker 9: per and when I come on to the media in
23:02
Speaker 9: this segment later on in the news. So this stuff's
23:05
Speaker 9: got absolutely everywhere. The un have clearly got their hands
23:08
Speaker 9: on it. Alpen has been bragging recently. This is from
23:12
Speaker 9: the Hayward Quarterly, which I'll again provide a link to.
23:16
Speaker 9: I'd suggest going to read why Government needs a fresh nudge.
23:20
Speaker 9: So Helpen's really reservicing this stuff, needs to double down
23:24
Speaker 9: on it. And it shows the enormous success of this
23:27
Speaker 9: initiative and how far these ideas have spread across global governments,
23:31
Speaker 9: so but primarily in the UK. And actually you can
23:35
Speaker 9: see at the top there the UK has to my
23:37
Speaker 9: count eighty three separate nudge units running across various different
23:43
Speaker 9: departments including HMRC, DEFRA, OFFCOM, HMCTS, the court system. And
23:52
Speaker 9: this just demonstrates the influence and power of this stuff ultimately,
23:56
Speaker 9: and the influence and power of Helpen in particular. He's
23:59
Speaker 9: highly ative today. He put this out in January via Demos.
24:03
Speaker 9: Our old friends at Demos. I think I've spoken about
24:06
Speaker 9: them every week for the past month. Social Capital twenty
24:08
Speaker 9: twenty five, The Hidden Wealth of Nations, written alongside Andy
24:13
Speaker 9: hawdayan former Bank of England chief economist and then he
24:17
Speaker 9: was the chief executive of the Ral site of the Arts,
24:19
Speaker 9: but he got booted out at the start of the year.
24:21
Speaker 9: There was a total meltdown at the RSA. Won't go
24:24
Speaker 9: into that right now, but I suggest going to have
24:26
Speaker 9: a look at this. You probably don't want to read
24:28
Speaker 9: all of it because essentially you've got two technocrats trying
24:31
Speaker 9: to intellectualize and quantitatively measure something which any normal human
24:36
Speaker 9: being would understand intuitively and without explanation. Right, this idea
24:40
Speaker 9: of social capital, the fact that we have a reputation
24:43
Speaker 9: and that we interact with each other as human beings
24:45
Speaker 9: and that trust is important. Apparently they need to write
24:47
Speaker 9: a long report to understand that, right, And this is
24:51
Speaker 9: slap bang in the middle of the current Labor Party agenda.
24:56
Speaker 9: It builds around some ideas around the preventative state which
24:59
Speaker 9: come demos a couple of years ago now, actually came
25:02
Speaker 9: out during the Tory government, the last Tory government, which
25:05
Speaker 9: basically it's just promoting this idea that the state needs
25:07
Speaker 9: to be involved in absolutely every part of your life.
25:10
Speaker 9: It's LinkedIn. If we could just flash that back up
25:13
Speaker 9: on screen quickly. If you see on the cover page
25:16
Speaker 9: on the left, in the bottom right hand corner of that,
25:18
Speaker 9: you can see local trust, right. Interesting, they've got to
25:21
Speaker 9: get local trust. And also something called the National Network
25:24
Speaker 9: for Neighborhood Improvement, which is a new initiative a bit
25:27
Speaker 9: like three CI. This is three NI three CI in
25:31
Speaker 9: the climate arena.
25:33
Speaker 1: This is a.
25:33
Speaker 9: Counterpart, but it's all about social innovation and it's also
25:37
Speaker 9: linked into They love this sort of this multiplicity of
25:41
Speaker 9: different organizations. This is all linked into the same thing, right,
25:44
Speaker 9: but they need lots of different things to make it
25:46
Speaker 9: look like there isn't a kind of monopoly on how
25:49
Speaker 9: this thing's being pushed forward. It actually ladders up to this,
25:52
Speaker 9: which is ICON the Independent Commission on Neighborhoods and they're
25:56
Speaker 9: reviewing the current state of neighborhoods across England. This was
26:01
Speaker 9: launched in September last year and essentially going out and
26:05
Speaker 9: asking a bunch of questions. Again, I won't read them
26:08
Speaker 9: out in their totality just to kind of with an
26:11
Speaker 9: iron time, but essentially what they're trying to do is
26:14
Speaker 9: to understand why neighborhoods are important and in order to
26:17
Speaker 9: do that again, this is this kind of technocratic never
26:20
Speaker 9: leaves the M twenty five kind.
26:21
Speaker 1: Of worldview, which is that, well, why do we need.
26:24
Speaker 9: To write a one hundred page report with a load
26:26
Speaker 9: of graphs in it to explain my neighborhoods are important?
26:29
Speaker 9: Surely that's just blindingly obvious to anyone with a soul,
26:33
Speaker 9: you know, like this is this is this what we're
26:35
Speaker 9: looking at here? Solace technocrats running the country? I think
26:39
Speaker 9: it might be who's in charge of icon right, So
26:42
Speaker 9: this is Baroness Hillary Armstrong. She was a minister under
26:47
Speaker 9: the Blair governments, so first for Housing and Planning, then
26:51
Speaker 9: local government, then social exclusion. She was also Chief Whip
26:55
Speaker 9: as well, so top Blair age. She's running this A
26:58
Speaker 9: bunch of other people in there with Demos links, So
27:01
Speaker 9: again this is a Demos proxy what we're looking at here.
27:04
Speaker 9: And you can see on that image David Haupin in
27:06
Speaker 9: the far left and also so there I say far
27:10
Speaker 9: left politically as well.
27:11
Speaker 1: And you can see on.
27:12
Speaker 9: The sign in the background that you are in a
27:14
Speaker 9: big local area. So this is another initiative called Big Local,
27:19
Speaker 9: which is a continuation of the Big Society agenda, which
27:23
Speaker 9: was based on the ideas of Saul Alinsky. This is
27:25
Speaker 9: neo Marxist communist essentially, and they've mapped out the whole
27:29
Speaker 9: country and there are a bunch of neighborhoods, schools of
27:33
Speaker 9: neighborhoods that they've identified as being of particular interest, and
27:40
Speaker 9: these are the people that Helpen is targeting.
27:42
Speaker 1: He is walking amongst them.
27:43
Speaker 9: He has gone out into the field and he is
27:46
Speaker 9: exploring how he can apply his ideas for re engineering
27:49
Speaker 9: humanity on the poorest people in the country. Yeah, that's
27:55
Speaker 9: what these people are doing. Yeah, and really getting a
27:58
Speaker 9: grip around the nation. It's all about delivering the missions.
28:02
Speaker 9: So there is no pathway to mission delivery without putting
28:05
Speaker 9: neighborhoods front and center. Yeah, this is absolutely crucial to
28:10
Speaker 9: the implementation of the change agenda. They've got to get
28:13
Speaker 9: everyone in the country caught up in this thing. This
28:16
Speaker 9: is total centralized control of our society, driven by Halpen
28:21
Speaker 9: and these organizations. Here lot of talk of reform, as
28:25
Speaker 9: in the political party, which is essentially a proxy for
28:27
Speaker 9: people who don't like what the state's doing. They talk
28:30
Speaker 9: about reform and needing to combat it and control it,
28:33
Speaker 9: which is really odd given this is supposed to be
28:35
Speaker 9: an impartial commission. NHS obviously front and center article here
28:40
Speaker 9: which we'll link to the BBC which talks about an
28:44
Speaker 9: English neighborhood that claims to hold the secret to fixing
28:46
Speaker 9: the NHS, and I see West Streeting has come out
28:49
Speaker 9: and promised to turn the NHS into a neighborhood health service.
28:52
Speaker 9: So we're going to start hearing this term a lot
28:55
Speaker 9: again for all the reasons that I've identified. Interestingly, the
28:58
Speaker 9: neighborhood that they reference is in Birmingham where they can't
29:01
Speaker 9: even collect the bins at the moment, which is posing
29:03
Speaker 9: a public health issue.
29:04
Speaker 1: But apparently we've.
29:05
Speaker 9: Got to go to Birmingham to find out what the
29:08
Speaker 9: future of the NHS is all about. And ultimately, for me,
29:11
Speaker 9: this really lads up to some really hideous people and
29:14
Speaker 9: some hideous ideas, And actually the best place to go
29:17
Speaker 9: to understand it, I think is this podcast which came
29:20
Speaker 9: from Martin made, which is called The Anti Humans, which
29:24
Speaker 9: is a harrowing listen. It's about three hours long and
29:27
Speaker 9: it describes what the Communist did in Rumania, some of
29:29
Speaker 9: the most violent and destructive actions in human history, where
29:33
Speaker 9: they really were tearing human minds and bodies to pieces
29:37
Speaker 9: and putting them together again in new shapes of their
29:39
Speaker 9: own choosing. And that's what I think that we can
29:41
Speaker 9: see here playing out with these behavioral insights techniques and
29:45
Speaker 9: this desire to radically transform humanity radically.
29:49
Speaker 2: It absolutely is that I hope well have time to
29:51
Speaker 2: all about that an extra thank you very much, Ben. Now,
29:53
Speaker 2: as you'll know, the UK column is funded solely by
29:56
Speaker 2: its members and viewers, and so if you are position
30:00
Speaker 2: to be able to support that, then you can either
30:03
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30:06
Speaker 2: member or an annual member, or indeed as a lifetime member.
30:10
Speaker 2: We also get a small percentage of sales of client
30:12
Speaker 2: cars products which are available on the website. And indeed,
30:16
Speaker 2: so I've got that back to front our merchandise in
30:19
Speaker 2: the shop, so please they do go and have a
30:21
Speaker 2: look there. Also, we'd encourage you please to not just
30:25
Speaker 2: engage with but also to share our material as widely
30:28
Speaker 2: as you possibly can, because we are heavily centered elsewhere. Now, Ben,
30:32
Speaker 2: you have something coming up.
30:34
Speaker 9: Indeed, this is my side hustle, what I do in
30:37
Speaker 9: my evenings and on the Saturdays.
30:39
Speaker 1: It's called pattern.
30:40
Speaker 9: We're building parallel systems of culture, governance and economy, which
30:44
Speaker 9: means is new businesses, new charities, new campaigns, and I'm
30:47
Speaker 9: running an incubator program over ten weeks. It's a structured process.
30:51
Speaker 9: It's about unlocking growth. People who are launching new things
30:55
Speaker 9: and want to participate in creating different options for society.
31:00
Speaker 1: Come on down.
31:01
Speaker 9: It starts on the twenty seats of April and as
31:03
Speaker 9: I say, runs for ten weeks.
31:05
Speaker 1: I'm running the program.
31:06
Speaker 9: If it sounds like your bag, or it might relate
31:08
Speaker 9: to someone that you know, wou'd be interested, then you
31:10
Speaker 9: can find out more by going to patent eighteen or
31:13
Speaker 9: substack dot com and then also be a link in
31:15
Speaker 9: the show notes.
31:16
Speaker 2: Great, thank you, Ben and Diane. A bit more on
31:18
Speaker 2: Dan Cleman please.
31:21
Speaker 5: Yes, thanks Charles.
31:22
Speaker 4: So, I know we've mentioned this on the news a
31:24
Speaker 4: couple of times last week, but since I'm here today,
31:26
Speaker 4: I want to specifically do a particular kind of focused
31:29
Speaker 4: message about the importance of this case. Dan Clemban, I've
31:33
Speaker 4: ented you previously on you K column. He's being sued
31:36
Speaker 4: by the same woman called Amanda Jones, who was a
31:38
Speaker 4: school librarian in two different states, for defamation and Amanda
31:42
Speaker 4: Jones some of you might remember previously I did a
31:44
Speaker 4: review of her book called That Librarian, which was her
31:48
Speaker 4: basically ranting about how awful it was to have been
31:50
Speaker 4: attacked by these people, in her words, that because they
31:54
Speaker 4: don't want these inappropriate books put into school libraries. And
31:57
Speaker 4: so she's fighting everything that she can possible included she's
32:02
Speaker 4: sued more than one person now. So Dan's legal fees,
32:05
Speaker 4: he estimates will be approximately two hundred thousand dollars because
32:08
Speaker 4: he's having to fight the same case in two different states.
32:11
Speaker 4: And just to let you know this is not just
32:13
Speaker 4: a US problem. We need to do more in the UK,
32:15
Speaker 4: which I'm actively trying to do myself. Here's one example
32:19
Speaker 4: of a book from the UK. This is a book
32:20
Speaker 4: if you can put this on the screen holding up
32:23
Speaker 4: called Granddad's Pride. Granddad and Gramps went to many pride
32:28
Speaker 4: parades and what happens when they bring this little grandchild
32:32
Speaker 4: to the pride parade And that's a story about that.
32:34
Speaker 5: This book has won the.
32:35
Speaker 4: British Book Award and Waterstone's Children's Book Prize and it's
32:39
Speaker 4: got protesters holding up signs inside this picture book for
32:42
Speaker 4: daring young children saying things like LGB with the t
32:45
Speaker 4: and protect trans kids.
32:47
Speaker 5: So just to let you know, I could go into
32:49
Speaker 5: much more, but I won't do it.
32:50
Speaker 4: But just please if you can at all give at
32:52
Speaker 4: least a prayer request which Dan's.
32:54
Speaker 5: Asked for on his page, or some money please.
32:58
Speaker 2: Great, don Thank you died, And now an investment for
33:02
Speaker 2: Stand in the Light, which is coming up the end
33:03
Speaker 2: of next month the Bank holiday weekend twenty third twenty
33:06
Speaker 2: sixth up in Cumbria. It's a fantastic festival last year
33:09
Speaker 2: attended by UK column and we will indeed be there
33:12
Speaker 2: this year, so please do look out a ticket for
33:15
Speaker 2: Stand in the Light and also a reminder that our
33:18
Speaker 2: event from the fifth of April is still available to
33:21
Speaker 2: buy at the shop. You can buy the recording of
33:24
Speaker 2: the live stream, which I really would encourage you to do,
33:26
Speaker 2: an absolutely fantastic selection of talks, and tomorrow going out
33:31
Speaker 2: at one o'clock an interview I've recorded with Doc Sam
33:34
Speaker 2: Bailey and New Zealander, who has been persecuted by the
33:38
Speaker 2: Medical Council of New Zealand and is now being asked
33:40
Speaker 2: for one hundred and fifty thousand New Zealand dollars in
33:43
Speaker 2: effect as a means of attempting to censor her. So
33:47
Speaker 2: that will be a very wide ranging and fascinating interview.
33:49
Speaker 2: I really would encourage you to take a look at that.
33:53
Speaker 2: Now we are going to move to Russia Ukraine. Of course,
33:58
Speaker 2: there's been an awful lot of talk controversy about the
34:02
Speaker 2: Trump tariff sort of merry go round, and a part
34:06
Speaker 2: of that narrative is that both China and Russia can
34:10
Speaker 2: indeed be dealt with by economic means, and I think
34:14
Speaker 2: this is something that we want to look more closely at.
34:16
Speaker 2: Of course, this is on the heels of the report
34:20
Speaker 2: yesterday of an attack in Sumi in northeast Ukraine, which
34:24
Speaker 2: Old Trump is.
34:25
Speaker 1: Seen to be.
34:27
Speaker 2: Speaking out, you know, very much as a horrific and
34:31
Speaker 2: regressible incident. All theys bit unclear as to sort of
34:34
Speaker 2: how it happened or what happened. And then we've got
34:36
Speaker 2: the sort of Whitkoff and Kellogg duo making overtures about
34:42
Speaker 2: how things could be resolved with rewriting the map and
34:46
Speaker 2: all the rest of it. But ultimately they keep coming
34:48
Speaker 2: back to the idea that the art of the deal
34:51
Speaker 2: is such that there may be financial control exerted over
34:53
Speaker 2: both China and Russia, either together or separately, in order
34:57
Speaker 2: to bring about the right outcome. Now, just as a
35:00
Speaker 2: prefix to that, I'm just going to show the map
35:03
Speaker 2: of government debt that the International Monetry Fund puts up,
35:06
Speaker 2: just because it's fairly stark. That shown in orange is
35:10
Speaker 2: the United States and the United Kingdom, both with a
35:14
Speaker 2: debt of over one hundred percent. And with that in mind,
35:18
Speaker 2: we now are going to go to Moscow where we're
35:20
Speaker 2: going to hear from Alex Kreole, who has been digging
35:24
Speaker 2: into this. And I think my question, first of all,
35:28
Speaker 2: welcome to the program, Alex, But my question to you is,
35:31
Speaker 2: with this backdrop, what exactly is the likely effect on
35:38
Speaker 2: Russia of any sort of financial or economic play from
35:42
Speaker 2: in particular the United States.
35:47
Speaker 10: Thanks Charles, So right at the moment, there are thirty
35:51
Speaker 10: eight thousand sanctions against individuals and corporates in Russia. That
35:56
Speaker 10: that's a figure calculated by the Kremlins. Have been in
36:00
Speaker 10: place now for about over three years, and in terms
36:04
Speaker 10: of you know, export performance of Russia, the effect has
36:09
Speaker 10: been essentially zero, and it's been zero in dollar terms.
36:13
Speaker 10: But what it's done is it's just shifted trade. All
36:18
Speaker 10: of the trade that went from Russia to Europe is
36:21
Speaker 10: now going from Russia to India, Russia to Turkey, and
36:25
Speaker 10: Russia to China.
36:26
Speaker 1: So I don't know if it's possible to put.
36:29
Speaker 10: The chart up, but even without the chart you can see, Yeah,
36:33
Speaker 10: you can see just the contraction in the red which
36:37
Speaker 10: is the reduction in trade with Europe, has been completely
36:41
Speaker 10: compensated for by incremental exports to those three countries I mentioned,
36:46
Speaker 10: so net there's been no impact really on exports from Russia.
36:51
Speaker 10: So at this stage I think it's fair to say
36:55
Speaker 10: that those those things have not worked. And of course
36:58
Speaker 10: the Russian economy on a GDP level continues to grow.
37:03
Speaker 10: They're revising the number upwards and downwards, but it's somewhere
37:06
Speaker 10: about four percent GDP growth in twenty twenty four, so
37:11
Speaker 10: so far that hasn't worked. And then also in the
37:15
Speaker 10: other charts shows the leaks in the importing system. So
37:22
Speaker 10: this is just an example where you have Estonia, which
37:26
Speaker 10: is one of the most that at least their political
37:29
Speaker 10: leaders so the most pro war and anti peace in Europe,
37:34
Speaker 10: and while they're out sort of warmongering, Estonian businesses are
37:40
Speaker 10: quadrupling the exports that they're making to Russia's neighbors in
37:45
Speaker 10: these CIS countries, So they're now exporting four times more
37:50
Speaker 10: to sort of Kazakhstan, as Bekistan, Armenia than they were
37:54
Speaker 10: before this special military operation started in twenty twenty two.
37:59
Speaker 10: So you have another you know, you have a porous
38:03
Speaker 10: system of tariff of sanctions over imports, and there are
38:08
Speaker 10: ways around it. So in dollar terms, those are not
38:11
Speaker 10: big numbers, going from five million euros a month to
38:14
Speaker 10: twenty million euros a month, but again it indicates the
38:18
Speaker 10: way that the sanctions regime can be bypassed or evaded.
38:23
Speaker 10: So I think there's going to be no, there won't
38:28
Speaker 10: be taken seriously more threats of sanctions inside Russia, although
38:32
Speaker 10: Russia is also working on trying to undo some of
38:35
Speaker 10: those sanctions, because in any one of these transactions, the
38:40
Speaker 10: buyer is also benefiting. So you know, in the example
38:43
Speaker 10: of Europe, Europe now no longer has access to cheap
38:47
Speaker 10: piped pipeline Russian gas and is now buying expensive LNG
38:52
Speaker 10: imports from the United States, so you know, in every
38:55
Speaker 10: one of those transactions, the other side is also losing.
38:58
Speaker 10: So Russia is trying to unfreeze su sanctions on agricultural exports,
39:03
Speaker 10: and that is something that's going to help a lot
39:05
Speaker 10: of countries around the world. If that's achieved to get
39:08
Speaker 10: Russia back onto the Swift system for a limited set
39:12
Speaker 10: of transactions.
39:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean fascinating, and I think, you know, it
39:17
Speaker 2: sort of harks back in a way to the opening
39:20
Speaker 2: reports there about still because obviously it seems that there's
39:23
Speaker 2: very some clumsy effort by the British government to demonize
39:27
Speaker 2: China in some way, even though in actual fact we
39:30
Speaker 2: import over sixty percent of our own steel. But nonetheless
39:34
Speaker 2: there is this sense of trying to apply some sort
39:36
Speaker 2: of pressure on China. To what extent do you think
39:40
Speaker 2: these policies, discussions, all the rest of it are actually
39:45
Speaker 2: pushing Russia and China towards one another.
39:50
Speaker 10: Well, they clearly have done over the since twenty twenty two.
39:54
Speaker 10: They are now joined at the hip, which is of
39:57
Speaker 10: course always the sort of geogeo strategic nightmare of that
40:02
Speaker 10: union happening. And now they're very closely put together. And
40:06
Speaker 10: I think I guess the rare earth minerals issue is
40:11
Speaker 10: now brought that into focus because China dominates that sector,
40:15
Speaker 10: and if you're fighting with China, and with Russia, I
40:18
Speaker 10: mean fighting politically and economically. Then you're also in trouble
40:23
Speaker 10: with things like rare earth minerals. So maybe the idea
40:28
Speaker 10: is to try and split them again, or at least
40:30
Speaker 10: put a little bit of distance between them. It's possible,
40:33
Speaker 10: but I don't think it's going to work at this stage.
40:37
Speaker 2: And in terms of the United States sort of approached this,
40:40
Speaker 2: do you think that there is naivety or ignorance or
40:44
Speaker 2: sort of a combination or something entirely different.
40:48
Speaker 10: I think I think it's just an overhang of imperial
40:53
Speaker 10: a sort of obsession with imperialism. I think in the
40:56
Speaker 10: early nineties America decided they are the hedgemon and they
41:01
Speaker 10: can dictate all the rules everywhere all around the world.
41:05
Speaker 10: And I think, you know, things have moved on since then.
41:08
Speaker 10: You know that, as you said, the debt charts, the
41:12
Speaker 10: differential GDP levels, you know, economic power and vulnerabilities are shifting,
41:18
Speaker 10: but they're still stuck in this single We are the
41:21
Speaker 10: hedgemon and we can dictate terms everywhere to everyone, and
41:24
Speaker 10: at some point that's going to stop working. And I
41:27
Speaker 10: think that's what the last you know, twenty years has
41:30
Speaker 10: been all about. Really, probably be what the next twenty
41:33
Speaker 10: years it's about as well.
41:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, well obviously we will.
41:37
Speaker 2: We will wait and see Alex, thank you very much,
41:38
Speaker 2: indeed joining us if you'd like to follow more of
41:40
Speaker 2: what Alex does, then the best place to go, i
41:42
Speaker 2: would say, is substantill linked to his substack thinking coalition
41:46
Speaker 2: in show notes, and we'll come back to discuss that
41:50
Speaker 2: more in extra Now, Ben, we're going to go to
41:54
Speaker 2: charitable journalism.
41:57
Speaker 1: Indeed, local journalism. This is the big focus.
42:01
Speaker 9: We talked about neighborhoods earlier. I talked about local journalism
42:04
Speaker 9: for the past couple of weeks and this really is
42:06
Speaker 9: going to be a big focus for the next year
42:08
Speaker 9: or two, I think.
42:09
Speaker 11: So.
42:10
Speaker 9: Just to remind you, we spoke about this report last
42:13
Speaker 9: week Public Interest News Foundation regenerating local news in the UK.
42:18
Speaker 9: They see the current ecosystem of news as delivering fragile
42:21
Speaker 9: communities victimized by disinformation, leading to a withering democracy. Democracy
42:28
Speaker 9: is dying, but we're going to move to this new
42:31
Speaker 9: model with community news rooms whatever. That is a new
42:36
Speaker 9: type of local council. They've transformed the state right and
42:42
Speaker 9: an empowered community, flourishing democracy. Big tech much more tightly
42:47
Speaker 9: controlled through legislation and importantly actually in the center there
42:51
Speaker 9: as we'll get into the involvement of philanthropy, rich people
42:56
Speaker 9: injecting money into the media ecosystem. What could possibly go wrong?
43:01
Speaker 2: Now?
43:01
Speaker 9: I wanted to understand a bit more about where this
43:03
Speaker 9: report came from and this entire agenda basically, and I've landed.
43:08
Speaker 1: On this organization.
43:09
Speaker 9: She is the Charitable Journalism Project, launched in twenty twenty two,
43:14
Speaker 9: and it describes itself as delivering policy and evidence to
43:18
Speaker 9: protect and develop public interest journalism. They love that term
43:21
Speaker 9: public interest, which basically means for your own good. I
43:25
Speaker 9: think actually they've sort of re engineered that to their
43:28
Speaker 9: own ends. So this is newsrooms reading from the bottom
43:32
Speaker 9: that work in the public interest needs support. Easier access
43:36
Speaker 9: to charitable status importantly would help them secure a sustainable future.
43:41
Speaker 9: So this is a group of journalists, lawyers, funders, academics
43:45
Speaker 9: and media people working together to protect, apparently and develop
43:49
Speaker 9: public interest journalism. A few people just to show you
43:52
Speaker 9: what we're looking at here. So William Perrin is involved.
43:56
Speaker 9: Now I've spoken about you for the past three weeks, William,
43:59
Speaker 9: you are getting absolute everywhere there. This is the guy
44:01
Speaker 9: that was boasting about being instrumental in establishing Offcom. He's
44:06
Speaker 9: absolutely involved in this still. Samir Pedania, who again I
44:10
Speaker 9: spoke about last week. He's on Perrin's Foundation and he's
44:15
Speaker 9: also linked into Open Societies, NESTA, the International Fund for
44:19
Speaker 9: Public Interest Media.
44:22
Speaker 1: Fascinating guy.
44:22
Speaker 9: Probably going to have to do a bit more of
44:24
Speaker 9: an exploration on him over the coming weeks because he's
44:26
Speaker 9: a big thinker in this area, really driving the agenda.
44:29
Speaker 9: And then this woman on the right, Kitty von Bertle,
44:32
Speaker 9: who is a trustee of the charity, and she is
44:37
Speaker 9: co founder of Multitudes Foundation, who I've spoken about a
44:41
Speaker 9: lot previously, which is a political organization. It's funded by
44:47
Speaker 9: Daniel Sachs and Open Societies. It's part of the apolitical
44:50
Speaker 9: network and its express purpose is to break existing power structures.
44:56
Speaker 9: That's what Multitudes Foundation says that it's there to do
45:00
Speaker 9: break existing power structures. She's also involved in this organization
45:05
Speaker 9: which is Illuminate, or she was involved at the time
45:08
Speaker 9: that this charity was founded right now. This is established
45:12
Speaker 9: by a guy called Pierre ah Madia. He was one
45:14
Speaker 9: of the founders of eBay, so French billionaire, and he
45:19
Speaker 9: envisions a future where everyone has power to shape society. Again,
45:23
Speaker 9: it's about the transformation of society. They're there to ensure
45:27
Speaker 9: that people have the information rights and power to drive change.
45:31
Speaker 9: They're involving themselves in information ecosystems, promoting participation and dissent importantly,
45:38
Speaker 9: but only dissent that serves their purposes. And it's working
45:43
Speaker 9: across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and actually I thought that
45:46
Speaker 9: this fund was only working across what they would probably
45:49
Speaker 9: call the Global South, but actually it is one of
45:52
Speaker 9: the vehicles for CJP. Apologies jumping ahead there, and which
46:01
Speaker 9: is interesting, shows they're working on the ground in the
46:03
Speaker 9: UK importantly. Right now we're going to hear from George Brock,
46:08
Speaker 9: who is the chairman of the Charitable Journalism Project, talking
46:12
Speaker 9: back in twenty twenty two to the DCMS Committee Local
46:17
Speaker 9: News inquiry.
46:20
Speaker 10: Why is it philanthropic funding of journalism is less prevalent
46:24
Speaker 10: in the UK than other countries like the US.
46:27
Speaker 12: Charitable Journalism Project works on exactly this issue, and we
46:33
Speaker 12: would like to see more organizations, more local newsrooms to
46:38
Speaker 12: apply and succeed as and registering as charities, which would
46:42
Speaker 12: give them a great advantage. There's perhaps more money sloshing
46:46
Speaker 12: around in the American system than they ever slatted around
46:49
Speaker 12: in the British system. But if they're registered as charities,
46:52
Speaker 12: they can take donations lives and small as a tax break,
46:55
Speaker 12: and there's a reputational gain as well. If you're a
46:57
Speaker 12: registered charity, obviously you look you're you're regulated. As far
47:02
Speaker 12: as I know, the Burngreave Messenger is the only local
47:05
Speaker 12: news provider registered as a charity. There's been some shift
47:11
Speaker 12: of attitude on the part of the Charity Commission recently.
47:15
Speaker 12: They've publicized the decision to register as the charity of
47:18
Speaker 12: the Public Interest News Foundation that they charitable journals and
47:22
Speaker 12: projects as well, and we think that they are starting
47:25
Speaker 12: to think more flexibly about this. But we would like
47:28
Speaker 12: to see this opening wider and more publications go through it.
47:33
Speaker 12: Not wouldn't suit every local publication to do that, but
47:37
Speaker 12: we think there are really quite a lot and our
47:38
Speaker 12: next project will probably be to look at exactly what
47:40
Speaker 12: this number is. We think there are quite a few
47:43
Speaker 12: local news projects which would gain from this and could
47:47
Speaker 12: strengthen their evidently often or often very ropy finances.
47:56
Speaker 9: There were more local newsrooms registering as charities. Apparently news
48:00
Speaker 9: is not an industry anymore it's charitable and this is
48:03
Speaker 9: a total inversion of what it's supposed to be. Right,
48:05
Speaker 9: It's supposed to operate in a marketplace and not be
48:10
Speaker 9: owned and controlled by philanthropic wealth. Ultimately, the people that
48:15
Speaker 9: these titles are supposed to be investigating and holding into account. Right,
48:18
Speaker 9: it's not just the state that's the issue. It's the
48:21
Speaker 9: money side of the para money equation as well. What
48:24
Speaker 9: else does charitable status do well. First of all, it
48:28
Speaker 9: makes them subject to greater regulations. We talked about Offcome
48:33
Speaker 9: over the past few weeks. The Charity Commission will also
48:35
Speaker 9: now be in the mix as well as that again,
48:38
Speaker 9: is the method through which greater and tied to control
48:40
Speaker 9: is going to be applied. It's going to give you access,
48:42
Speaker 9: supposedly to free money, so make it possible for big
48:45
Speaker 9: funds like Illuminate to inject money into this ecosystem so
48:49
Speaker 9: that they can strengthen their ropee finances. Which was quite
48:52
Speaker 9: an interesting term that he ended up on, which is
48:55
Speaker 9: really the point here, right, which is why are their
48:57
Speaker 9: finances ropee? To do with this, Right, it's the destruction
49:04
Speaker 9: of Western economies in order to place more power and
49:08
Speaker 9: wealth into the hands of a global one percent.
49:12
Speaker 1: That's the problem.
49:14
Speaker 9: Yeah, And getting that global one percent that has engineered
49:17
Speaker 9: this situation deliberately to start giving money to local newspapers
49:22
Speaker 9: is not going to fix the issue. It's going to
49:24
Speaker 9: exacerbate the issue, isn't it. That's what's going to happen. Right,
49:28
Speaker 9: And what else has been going on? Well, big tech
49:30
Speaker 9: entered the mix really importantly. So here's some statistics looking
49:34
Speaker 9: at the advertising revenues globally of publishers, TV channels and
49:40
Speaker 9: Meta aka Facebook. Right, so we can see that TV
49:44
Speaker 9: has gone down about twenty five percent since twenty sixteen.
49:47
Speaker 1: These numbers run up to twenty twenty three.
49:49
Speaker 9: Since a seven year period, it's gone from two hundred
49:51
Speaker 9: billion to around one hundred and fifty billion. Big drop
49:54
Speaker 9: publishing is even worse. It's gone from just under one
49:56
Speaker 9: hundred billion global revenues to just over fifties is nearly
49:59
Speaker 9: a fifty percent drop in the publishing space. And who's
50:03
Speaker 9: in the ascendant big tech, exemplified here by Meta. You've
50:08
Speaker 9: gone from things around twenty five billion revenue in twenty
50:12
Speaker 9: sixteen to nearly one hundred and fifty in twenty twenty three.
50:17
Speaker 9: And actually it's surpassed Meta's ad revenues, surpassed the whole
50:23
Speaker 9: of the global fixed linear television industry all TV advertising.
50:28
Speaker 9: Meta surpassed it in twenty twenty four, and it surpassed
50:31
Speaker 9: the publishing industry in twenty nineteen. And what was the
50:35
Speaker 9: big driver that really pushed it over the edge. It
50:37
Speaker 9: was COVID, wasn't it. That's what happened. And what does
50:42
Speaker 9: your man George brockcaff to say about this? From the
50:44
Speaker 9: charity Journalism Project, Well, he says in this article from
50:48
Speaker 9: the Conversation, coronavirus is killing quality journalism. Here's one possible lifeline.
50:55
Speaker 9: He says, the coronavirus crash should impel us as never
50:58
Speaker 9: before to look for new more both editorial and commercial,
51:02
Speaker 9: and to drive innovation, new ways of doing thing and
51:06
Speaker 9: imagination upper gear. Never, as the saying goes, let a
51:10
Speaker 9: really good crisis go to waste. That's a really interesting
51:16
Speaker 9: term there from George brook Sorry not Greg Brock, look
51:20
Speaker 9: at me.
51:20
Speaker 1: I made him mistake on the slide.
51:22
Speaker 9: And ultimately I think this is and I've used this
51:24
Speaker 9: term before, I'm going to use it again.
51:26
Speaker 1: I think this is what we're looking at right.
51:28
Speaker 9: The side effect is the intention the COVID lockdown amongst
51:32
Speaker 9: everything else, by the way, because I think the big
51:34
Speaker 9: tech was ultimately a way of destroying the media ecosystem.
51:37
Speaker 9: COVID was a way of accelerating that destruction, and that
51:40
Speaker 9: was deliberate. The side effect is the intention. Yeah CT
51:44
Speaker 9: Thank you.
51:45
Speaker 1: Very much Michael Driver for that. So much more to
51:48
Speaker 1: come on local media.
51:49
Speaker 9: This really is the battlegrap where run the global agenda
51:54
Speaker 9: and local people are going.
51:56
Speaker 1: To have to have to slug it out.
51:57
Speaker 2: So absolutely, and I mean so stark on that graph
52:02
Speaker 2: you're saying that leap up in twenty twenty. Thank you
52:05
Speaker 2: very much, Ben No, Diane Joo.
52:07
Speaker 1: Engineering.
52:07
Speaker 2: They always say they're not going to do it, they
52:09
Speaker 2: don't plan to do it. What are they planning to do?
52:12
Speaker 5: Well, I think we have some very solid evidence of
52:15
Speaker 5: what they are planning to do and what they are
52:17
Speaker 5: doing already.
52:18
Speaker 4: I want to start out by introducing this by talking
52:20
Speaker 4: about a UKARI, which is the UK Research and Innovation
52:23
Speaker 4: It's a quango that controls the majority of the public
52:26
Speaker 4: research funding in the UK. UKR is non departmental public
52:30
Speaker 4: body sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
52:34
Speaker 4: It is the largest research funder for public funding and
52:37
Speaker 4: universities in the UK. As I said, they ensure public
52:40
Speaker 4: funding is invested in research that apparently will benefit the
52:43
Speaker 4: whole of the UK and provide a clear return on
52:46
Speaker 4: investment for hardworking tax payers.
52:47
Speaker 5: At least that's what they say on their website.
52:49
Speaker 4: They have nine different research councils, mostly organized by subject areas.
52:55
Speaker 4: They have one area that's called Innovate UK, which sounds
52:58
Speaker 4: like one for ben they're recent funding and you know
53:02
Speaker 4: it's a lot of money. But some of the biggest
53:04
Speaker 4: projects in recent years has been for example, the COVID Astrozenica,
53:07
Speaker 4: COVID jabs, clear energy projects, AI development and a lot
53:13
Speaker 4: of work projects as well. So for example one called
53:16
Speaker 4: the Europe that gay Porn built nineteen forty five to
53:19
Speaker 4: two thousand. That was a ward to Birmingham City University
53:23
Speaker 4: for almost eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds. On the
53:26
Speaker 4: fourth of April there was a press release coming out
53:28
Speaker 4: that said that thirteen point nine billion pounds of research
53:31
Speaker 4: and development funding had been unveiled to boast to boost
53:35
Speaker 4: innovation and jobs and growth, and eight point eight billion
53:38
Speaker 4: of this was going to go to UKARI for distribution.
53:41
Speaker 5: To these nine councils.
53:43
Speaker 4: The Science and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle was quoted in
53:46
Speaker 4: this press release and he said quote R and D
53:49
Speaker 4: research and development is essential to fulfilling this government's plan
53:53
Speaker 4: for change, whether in improving lives across the UK and
53:57
Speaker 4: beyond through new life saving drugs helping us build a cleaner,
54:02
Speaker 4: cleaner future, or in exploring beyond our planet to unlock
54:06
Speaker 4: new discoveries that keep us healthy, safe and prosperous and
54:09
Speaker 4: much more besides. But actually, if you look at the
54:12
Speaker 4: real numbers, the government has cut the funding for UKARI
54:15
Speaker 4: and the new budget allocation with three hundred million pounds
54:18
Speaker 4: less than in the last budget. Considering inflation, that's actually
54:21
Speaker 4: a significant amount. So that makes it interesting that in
54:25
Speaker 4: the government announced back in February that Professor Sir Ian
54:28
Speaker 4: Chapman had been appointed the next CEO of UKARI, with
54:33
Speaker 4: a renewed focus on economic growth lord balance. The Science
54:37
Speaker 4: Minister said that Sir e and the new CEO's leadership,
54:40
Speaker 4: experienced scientific expertise and academic achievements make him an exceptionally
54:44
Speaker 4: strong candidate to lead UKARI in pursuing ambitious, curiosity driven
54:48
Speaker 4: research as well as innovations that will unlock new benefits
54:53
Speaker 4: for the UK's people and drive our plan for change.
54:56
Speaker 4: We also think Dame Adeline Leiser, I hope I'm saying
54:59
Speaker 4: that directly ahead of her stepping down the summer, recognizing
55:03
Speaker 4: her pivotal work in guiding UKARI three challenging times, notably
55:07
Speaker 4: during the COVID pandemic and through the UK's return to
55:10
Speaker 4: participation in Horizon Europe. So Horizon Europe is European wide
55:14
Speaker 4: public research funding scheme that we had been taken out
55:17
Speaker 4: of for a few years because of Brexit. Dame Lyser,
55:20
Speaker 4: as we can see here on this slide, is predictably
55:24
Speaker 4: a World Economic Forum contributor, and her most popular piece
55:27
Speaker 4: for the WEF is called what should motivate Scientific Research?
55:32
Speaker 4: Going back to twelve of March twenty twenty five, on
55:34
Speaker 4: UK column News, Charles presented a really interesting segment called
55:38
Speaker 4: the net zero scam now involves planetary solvency and geoengineering.
55:43
Speaker 4: It started looking into the Center for Climate Repair at
55:46
Speaker 4: the University of Cambridge and I had a feeling that
55:49
Speaker 4: this would be a good start to help look at
55:51
Speaker 4: what actually gets funded by UKARI, and of course UW
55:54
Speaker 4: engineering is a topic of great interest to our viewers.
55:58
Speaker 4: So as I said, there are nine research als within UKRII.
56:01
Speaker 4: One of them is called the Natural Environment Research Council,
56:04
Speaker 4: or i'll call it NERK. It funds a lot of
56:07
Speaker 4: climate change research at universities. It announced last year that
56:11
Speaker 4: it would be funding for ten point five million pounds
56:14
Speaker 4: from twenty twenty five to twenty thirty a project called
56:17
Speaker 4: modeling Environmental responses to Solar Radiation management or SRM. So
56:22
Speaker 4: that means blocking out the sun to keep the temperature
56:25
Speaker 4: down like we need at lower temperatures here.
56:26
Speaker 5: In the UK.
56:28
Speaker 4: These specific points under the funding would include climate impacts
56:32
Speaker 4: of stratospheric aerosol intervention which is SPRAYINGLESKI.
56:36
Speaker 5: So I guess you could say that climate.
56:38
Speaker 4: Effects of marine cloud brightening using natural analogs and mining
56:42
Speaker 4: of existing data to understand SRM, and the climate impacts
56:47
Speaker 4: of other double or lesser studied SRM techniques. So essentially
56:52
Speaker 4: they are going to measure the cooling potential of these
56:54
Speaker 4: different options so that we have a better idea of which,
56:57
Speaker 4: if any, should be explored further. They said that they
57:00
Speaker 4: would only be doing modeling and not actually applying techniques.
57:03
Speaker 5: With this funding.
57:05
Speaker 4: So talking to Professor Sean Fitzgerald, who is the director
57:10
Speaker 4: of the Center for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge,
57:13
Speaker 4: I really like this quote if those of us who
57:16
Speaker 4: actually know what decarbonization might apply, he actually said, in
57:19
Speaker 4: relation to this funded project, I'll be so happy if
57:23
Speaker 4: we've decarbonized so quickly that we don't need to apply
57:26
Speaker 4: this research. So the Center for Planate Repair is one
57:30
Speaker 4: of the major recipients of this ten point five million
57:34
Speaker 4: pounds of funding. So it's worth noting as well to
57:37
Speaker 4: go back into looking at the history of where this
57:40
Speaker 4: all came from. There are some government statements that we
57:43
Speaker 4: conceive these links will be in the show notes. Under
57:45
Speaker 4: the coalition government a few years ago there was a
57:48
Speaker 4: policy paper published stating the government's view on greenhouse gas
57:52
Speaker 4: removal technologies, which is really what they're saying this all
57:54
Speaker 4: does and sol the radiation management. It said, quote greenhouse
57:59
Speaker 4: gas remove and solar radiation management are terms describing a
58:03
Speaker 4: range of technologies that aim to counteract human caused climate
58:06
Speaker 4: change by deliberate, large scale intervention and the Earth's natural systems.
58:11
Speaker 4: They are sometimes referred to as geoengineering or climate engineering.
58:15
Speaker 5: And they said in order to deliver.
58:16
Speaker 4: On the commitment that was made by the UK by
58:18
Speaker 4: signing the Paris Agreement, the UK has legislated for neuro
58:21
Speaker 4: emissions by twenty fifty. As we know, the Commedian Climate
58:25
Speaker 4: Change have made it clear that greenhouse gas removal will
58:28
Speaker 4: be essential to realizing this target, so they think that
58:32
Speaker 4: they will be having to use these techniques to offset
58:34
Speaker 4: remaining emissions in the sectors where it is most difficult
58:37
Speaker 4: to cut them specifically. The Comedian Climate Change Report, which
58:42
Speaker 4: was published in twenty sixteen, talks about what need to
58:46
Speaker 4: be done specifically, and it's said that solar geoengineering proposals
58:51
Speaker 4: include springing reflective particles into the upper atmosphere stratospheric aerosols
58:57
Speaker 4: that again sprang us. This process occurs naturally during very
59:02
Speaker 4: large volcanic eruptions, such as Mount Pinatubo in nineteen ninety one.
59:08
Speaker 4: Now I have a video clip here that mentions this
59:10
Speaker 4: Mount Pinatubo eruption. It's from me Siminar by the Center
59:14
Speaker 4: for Climate Repair, which is the organization we're talking about
59:16
Speaker 4: that received part of this ten minut ten and a
59:18
Speaker 4: half million pounds of funding at Cambridge University. This talk
59:22
Speaker 4: was given on my birthday, the twenty eighth of March
59:24
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five. The seminar was called Climate Interventions colon
59:29
Speaker 4: a Distraction or necessity question mark.
59:32
Speaker 5: This portion that we're going to see was from Hugh Hunt.
59:35
Speaker 4: You is the deputy director of the Center for Climate
59:38
Speaker 4: Repair and a professor in the Department of Engineering at Cambridge.
59:41
Speaker 4: He starts here talking about another scientist called John Shepherd.
59:45
Speaker 4: Let's hear what he had to say about John and
59:47
Speaker 4: about spraying.
59:50
Speaker 13: Sadly I never met him, but he died a while ago,
59:58
Speaker 13: just port.
1:00:01
Speaker 1: Living in snake.
1:00:04
Speaker 13: Well that's news to me. Really, Sorry, John, can we
1:00:09
Speaker 13: edit that up? Okay? Fine, Well that's a bit embarrassing.
1:00:16
Speaker 13: Oh well John, Okay.
1:00:17
Speaker 5: Well.
1:00:17
Speaker 13: So John famously wrote at a at a conference this
1:00:21
Speaker 13: thing which has become known as the Napkin diagram. And
1:00:24
Speaker 13: I've got a napkin here and I drew it out,
1:00:27
Speaker 13: the Napkin diagram.
1:00:28
Speaker 1: And funny, if you.
1:00:29
Speaker 13: Google Napkin diagram, this is what you get. You know,
1:00:32
Speaker 13: you get this thing about geoengineering. Napkin diagram says that
1:00:37
Speaker 13: temperature on the left hand side time on the horizontal access.
1:00:41
Speaker 13: Business as usual, b AU.
1:00:44
Speaker 3: We're gonny.
1:00:44
Speaker 13: Things are going to get pretty bad pretty quick. Emissions
1:00:47
Speaker 13: reductions alone, as Oliver was saying, is not going to
1:00:51
Speaker 13: happen quickly. Come dark side removal, you know again, that's
1:00:56
Speaker 13: gonna take a bit of time to get going, but
1:00:59
Speaker 13: we're gonna need to do it. But whatever happens, we're
1:01:02
Speaker 13: left with this hump, this overshoot as it's called, where
1:01:06
Speaker 13: we want to be able to do something like soldar
1:01:08
Speaker 13: radiation management to keep the temperatures down. Emissions reductions alone
1:01:13
Speaker 13: is not enough. Now, I was involved in this SPICE project,
1:01:16
Speaker 13: as Sean said, stratospheric particle injection for climate engineering, where
1:01:21
Speaker 13: we learned from nineteen ninety one Mount Pinatubo erupted in
1:01:25
Speaker 13: the Philippines and caused the degree of cooling or thereabouts
1:01:29
Speaker 13: for a year or thereabouts. Could we imitate that in
1:01:33
Speaker 13: some way? And so our SPICE project was looking at
1:01:36
Speaker 13: how we might use a tethered balloon perhaps to put
1:01:41
Speaker 13: some stuff into the stratosphere to imitate the active effect
1:01:47
Speaker 13: of the volcano.
1:01:52
Speaker 5: So the good news is Joina is dead.
1:01:55
Speaker 4: The bad news is that he was involved in a
1:01:57
Speaker 4: project called Stratispic particle injection for climate in engineering, but
1:02:01
Speaker 4: as I said, they're only apparently only doing modeling of
1:02:03
Speaker 4: blocking out the sun with this particular project, But what
1:02:05
Speaker 4: would it look like to apply this actual research. So
1:02:09
Speaker 4: I've got another final short clip here from Douglas McMartin
1:02:12
Speaker 4: at Cornell University talking about blocking out the sun and
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Speaker 4: spraying the skies.
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Speaker 11: In principle, you could do something in space that's prohibitively expensive,
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Speaker 11: almost certainly. Marine cloud brightening is the next most frequently
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Speaker 11: discussed idea. The picture here is of ship tracks off
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Speaker 11: of Europe's Atlantic coast, So that's formed by the pollution
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Speaker 11: from a ship interacting with water vapor in the atmosphere
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Speaker 11: to form a cloud. And you could in principle do
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Speaker 11: that by spraying salt water into the clouds as well.
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Speaker 11: This is less well understood. It's actually one of the
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Speaker 11: biggest uncertainties in climate science is how clouds and aerosols interact.
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Speaker 11: Stratospheric aerosols spread globally, so it's inherently a global solution.
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Speaker 11: Marine cloud bright is a little different in that you
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Speaker 11: could do it in a much more targeted regime. That
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Speaker 11: doesn't mean the effects would stay tart in a specific
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Speaker 11: local area, but they could certainly be focused there, and
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Speaker 11: in fact Australia is looking at this right now for
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Speaker 11: cooling the Great Barrier Reef. There's a third idea, which
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Speaker 11: is cirrus cloud thinning that's not actually reflecting sunlight but
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Speaker 11: avoiding trapping more heat. Serious clouds actually trap heat, so
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Speaker 11: they warm the planet, and if you could thin them
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Speaker 11: that would allow more heat to escape. That's currently very uncertain,
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Speaker 11: but it has similar governance issues.
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Speaker 4: Well, I don't think we need to say just look
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Speaker 4: up to see that they're springless, guys, because we actually
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Speaker 4: don't have evidence that whatever we see above us is
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Speaker 4: actual spring this guys.
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Speaker 5: But we can see that there are plans for this.
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Speaker 4: And in case of interest, the Center for Climate Repair
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Speaker 4: is having a big conference on the twenty sixth to
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Speaker 4: the twentieth of June this year called Arctic Repair twenty
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Speaker 4: twenty five. The main topics will be who decides ethics, covenance,
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Speaker 4: and public perceptions above the clouds, stratospheric aerosol injection. So
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Speaker 4: there it is the way ahead the future of Arctic repair.
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Speaker 4: Great ideas, marine cloud brightening, and other interventions. So I'm
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Speaker 4: wondering what this other interventions will be. I don't know, Charles.
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Speaker 4: Maybe I should go to the conference and find out.
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Speaker 4: Do you think they would let me in?
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Speaker 2: Dan, that has a very good idea and that will
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Speaker 2: be a fine note to finish the news on today.
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Speaker 2: We have run out of time, but it does seem
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Speaker 2: an awful lot of time, effort and money to throughout
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Speaker 2: something that the government insists it's not going to do.
1:04:35
Speaker 2: But we will have this and plenty besides to talk
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Speaker 2: about an extra So if you are a member, please
1:04:39
Speaker 2: do stay on to join us for extra. Also, if
1:04:43
Speaker 2: you are able, please tune into the interview with Sam
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Speaker 2: Bailey tomorrow at one o'clock because that really will be
1:04:49
Speaker 2: a great insight into an extraordinary situation. And otherwise it
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Speaker 2: just remains for me to thank Ben, thank you very
1:04:56
Speaker 2: much joined me in the studio, Diane and Alex by
1:05:00
Speaker 2: video link, and you will all remain on the line
1:05:02
Speaker 2: for extra so please john us again and otherwise we
1:05:04
Speaker 2: will see you for the news on Wednesday. Thanks very much, indeed,
1:05:08
Speaker 2: Bye bye.