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Bookend episode: looking back at season 1 of Saving The World From Bad Ideas · Saving the World From Bad Ideas

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  Bad ideas aren't bad people and vice versa.
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  We shouldn't be making this into tribes well.
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  Producer Rob, I have to say that sounds a bit kumbaya to me.
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  We all have to hold hands and and agree to disagree.
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  I actually think it does raise a question though, which is is the
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  bad idea concept entirely subjective in that one person's
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  bad idea might be another person's brilliant idea?
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  Welcome to saving the world from bad ideas.
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  I'm Mark Linus, and I've had a few bad ideas in my time.
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  I used to go out in the night time to destroy GMO crops, and I
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  also posed nuclear power. But then when I looked at the
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  science, I found I got it wrong. Oops.
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  I've learned the hard way that none of us are right all the
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  time. So now I'm here to challenge the
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  assumptions that we all too often take for granted because
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  the future depends on us getting it right.
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  Hello, and welcome to saving the world from bad ideas.
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  This is our season finale, so we have a very special guest
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  joining us today who's combed his beard, especially.
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  This is producer Rob, who, if you're watching on YouTube, you
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  actually get to see in the flesh.
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  Say hello, Rob, to all the millions of listeners.
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  Oh, yeah, yeah, I will. Hi, millions of listeners.
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  Mark, this isn't what we set out.
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  This is just like a wrap up episode.
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  It's not an actual episode. It's yeah, I know.
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  But this is a very exciting opportunity for us to have a
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  look at what we've done in the past, see what, see what we've
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  learned and have some, you know, have some thoughts about what we
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  might want to do in the future. I think so, yeah.
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  Do you want to do you want to kick us off, Rob?
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  Yeah, actually I was thinking about what kind of bad idea we
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  like, maybe a meta bad idea we could be getting into, like what
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  is Mark's, Mark's meta bad idea and going on some of the
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  feedback on some of the episodes.
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  I'll, I'll get into that later, but I think it would be
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  something along the lines of bad, bad ideas equals bad
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  people, kind of the sense that this is an era of cancel culture
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  and tribalism. So and we're risking conflating
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  bad ideas with bad people. And that goes on in both sides.
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  If I'm going to make this into a binary.
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  So we've had people on like Roger put the junior and we've
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  had feedback like, why are you having on that?
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  Signs denier, climate change denier.
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  And then we're having people like Juliana Stolvo, which has
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  the exact opposite effect, like why are you having on someone?
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  Someone is doom thinking, etcetera.
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  So I think that is like a meta bad idea that we're approaching.
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  Bad ideas aren't bad people and vice versa.
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  We shouldn't be making this into tribes.
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  We should be able to look at ideas, even those that are
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  challenging and just just play around with them because that's
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  basically what we have to do is, is get to the good ideas by
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  having playing with them as toys and pumping them into each
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  other, et cetera, rather than making this about personalities
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  and good people versus bad people.
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  So yeah, that was my proposal to to you actually.
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  Well, producer Rob, I have to say that sounds a bit, that
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  sounds a bit cumbiar to me. We all have to hold hands and
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  and agree to disagree. I actually think it does raise a
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  question though, which is, is, is the bad idea concept entirely
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  subjective in that one person's bad idea might be another
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  person's brilliant idea, or is it or is it?
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  I mean, because we claim objectivity in that we claim at
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  least for we plan it to be science LED and evidence based.
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  And, you know, if we want to make, if we, if we make an
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  assertion, we want that to have numbers attached to it.
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  And those numbers have got to, you know, ideally have been
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  published somewhere which is transparent, trackable in the
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  period literature, all of that kind of thing which we often
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  which we take pleasure in accusing other NGOs and other
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  competitors of not doing. So we have to follow our own
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  rules on that level. So I think, I don't know, I do
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  have some claimed objectivity about this, but it's also about,
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  I don't know, pushing some of the boundaries out of, you know,
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  of, of, of thought leadership that's coming from within the
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  sort of the broad that our movement within the broadest way
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  that you could conceive it. So you mentioned Roger
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  Pilkerjun. I mean, he's a, he's been
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  cancelled more times than you can count by the kind of very
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  old guard environmentalists. But he's generally right about
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  stuff, which is one of the reasons why people he annoys
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  people so much because he he kind of takes pleasure in
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  rubbing that in. But we've had, you know, we've
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  had Johan Rokstrom on who's, you know, an old friend of mine and
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  coined the concept, originated the concept of planetary
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  boundaries, which has been very influential in Earth system
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  science. So that's kind of hard science
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  stuff, but it's controversial within our movement.
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  I mean, there's a lot of people, yeah.
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  Within the eco modernist scene, you hate planetary boundaries
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  because I think it's Malthusian and so on.
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  And I, you know, so I'm happy to have all of those debates
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  within, within the podcast. So there's pretty much no one I
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  think we won't we won't talk to except maybe beyond Longborg.
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  I don't know whether he is is uncancellable or whether that's
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  really gone far too far. Yeah, for some deeper context
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  there, you should, you should probably elucidate some of your
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  altercations with John Montbrook in the past, right?
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  Well, there was only one altercation, which was when I
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  threw. That that one when I threw a.
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  When I threw a pie in his face back in 2001, I think it was.
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  Yes. It's still there on YouTube.
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  No, please don't watch it. It was my most embarrassing
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  moment. But, you know, that was there
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  was a real disagreement there. His he'd written this book, the
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  Skeptical Environmentalists, which a lot of us and I was kind
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  of defending the, you know, environmental mainstream back in
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  those days. And there was a lot of stuff
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  which I think he took too far and his numbers weren't weren't
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  great, to be honest. And so while I think I've come
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  to to seek to sort of better appreciate what beyond my book's
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  trying to do, he's he goes further than just being a gadfly
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  or, you know, he's very different from from what Roger,
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  what Roger Kilkatunya is doing. It, it seems to be actually
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  fully invested in kind of right wing tropes and trying to
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  undermine, you know, consensus towards net zero and, and these
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  kinds of things. So it's it's pushing buttons,
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  but I don't think it's doing it in a particularly useful or
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  constructive way. Yeah, you've mentioned Jolan
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  Rokstrand's conversation and some of the feedback there
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  within again within like like the Canon etcetera is like,
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  that's not, that's not science. And and the nitrogen thing,
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  that's a local issue. So how can that ever be a
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  planetary country? So I think we're at least trying
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  to be looking at stuff from different angles.
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  We're not just putting up people that we just agree with all the
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  time. But how, how, how do you look at
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  like the, the, the issue of planetary boundaries?
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  How do you relate that to ecomogenism?
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  You think there is really not a conflict there or are we looking
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  at this wrong or is it not an ecomogenist on that front?
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  Well, producer Rob, I wrote a whole book on that and it's
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  there's unsold copies in there, many hundreds behind me on the
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  shelves and. OK, we could.
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  We could do a handout for people that read that.
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  That was one of my less successful books.
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  Actually, it's my favorite round of of your books, so.
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  It's funny, I've, I've read, I can't remember why.
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  I think I was doing some webinar and I read a couple of chapters
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  of it back. And you know, if you read
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  something you wrote years and years ago, it feels like it's
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  been written by somebody else and you're reading it for the
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  first time and actually, gosh, this stuff's quite good.
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  This guy's really insightful, which is like most of the time I
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  don't, I don't think about my own work.
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  But yeah, it was a shame actually how how that sunk
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  because I was trying to do exactly that, which was to kind
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  of square the circle between eco modernist progressivism in the
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  sense of like, you know, they're not being boundaries to human
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  flourishing in any meaningful sense.
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  But there are obviously ecological boundaries in terms
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  of how much, how much destruction we can cause to
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  biodiversity and how much we can knock the various, you know,
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  chemical, bio, geochemical cycles off kilter, whether it's
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  nitrogen or carbon or or fresh water or or whatever.
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  But you know, if you if you reconceive of what economic
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  growth means, then I think we can reconcile these things
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  together. And you know, I'm so I'm not a
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  degrowther, which is another thing that's come up and that
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  came up with Martin Houdry's podcast, because I think that's
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  it. It really depends on how you
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  conceive of growth. And you know, we're not we're
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  not running out of material resources anytime soon.
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  So it's it's really about how we how we minimize human impact on
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  on the biosphere. And I think innovation and
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  technology and some of the things that eco modernists care
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  about are actually some of the best ways of doing that.
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  Who else have we had on that was worth worth recalling?
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  I have to say my, my favorite, unexpected favorite episode was
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  the one with Luigi Boitani on on wolves, on coexistence with
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  wolves, because I wasn't expecting a challenge to our own
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  notions of rewilding. And let's have let's have the
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  wolf in the UK, for example. And he's he's like very down to
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  earth about it. Yeah, if you're going to have
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  that, you're going to have a lot of conflict with the livestock
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  in UK and you're also going to have to call the wolves at many,
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  many occasions. And so he's really taking all of
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  that romance on both sides out of the equation.
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  And he brought it back to look, why do we care about wolves?
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  Is it, it's not for some ecosystem function.
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  It's really because we care about wolves because, because we
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  like it, because it's, it's beautiful, because, yeah, that's
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  what life makes life worth living, I guess the the beauty
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  of the nature and experiencing and being able to appreciate
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  that. And I thought that was really,
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  that was quite deep for me instead of trying to always
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  motivate it in some kind of practical or cost sense.
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  And I wasn't expecting that for him.
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  I yeah, I learned a lot from Lauriti Boritani's episode.
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  And the thing actually, the thing that's starting with is
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  those dogs, apparently the way that that livestock's protected
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  from wolves in, you know, most of the continent in Europe is
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  they have these. And how do you describe these
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  dogs? They're white, they're big,
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  they're not too bright. All, all they have to do is bark
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  and not run away and, you know, bring the shepherd over.
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  And that's, that's oddly enough, it's the turn of phrase that
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  stuck with me as well, as as well as him saying that, yeah,
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  we're going to need to shoot some wolves.
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  And so, yeah, he kind of de romanticized it, I suppose.
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  But I still, yeah, I came out of there amused, informed, but just
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  as excited about Wolf. You know, Wolf's returning as as
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  I was before. Yeah.
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  What was an episode that stuck with you the most?
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  What is Do you have a favorite if that's OK to ask the hosts
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  who has to maintain relations with all guests?
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  Yeah, also, I don't know Briony Worthington, who is a podcast
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  host and she warned me before we started this.
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  She says, what are you going to do after you've finished, after
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  you've run out of interviewing all your mates?
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  And yeah, and I'm sort of thinking, well, I guess I'll go
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  back and interview my mates again.
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  So I'd love to have some, some people.
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  I'd feel like we only just began the conversation.
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  We barely even scratched the surface.
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  And I felt I felt with that, that that with George, I mean,
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  because George Monbiot, he's such a such a deep thinker and
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  he's done such a lot of work on so many issues that we planet we
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  really care about from, you know, rewilding through
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  production. But he's also, you know, he's
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  very political and he's very left wing.
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  He cares deeply about justice and equality and things, which I
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  think can, you know, when we're in a kind of tech bro bubble and
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  I use that the bro word because they're mostly are Bros, it can
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  get lost. And I think George, George keeps
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  that in there and keeps the heart in there and keeps the
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  politics and the power, you know, the power dimensions,
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  which he he always talks about. And I think that's that's really
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  critical. Yeah, we didn't end up end up
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  doing that, but I actually wanted him on to challenge like
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  eco modernism itself. But we ended up going for like,
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  like progress is inevitable like that.
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  Sometimes there is that within our movement.
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  I would say the sense of like progress is going to happen
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  anyway. You don't need all, all of that
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  activism. And I thought that was a good,
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  yeah, a check on that. Yeah, I could have, I could have
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  possibly pushed Steven Pinker a bit harder on that.
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  But that was our first recording.
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  And you know, I was, I was being a bit shy and a bit bit bit bit
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  polite. But yeah, I mean, he often come,
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  he often comes across as somebody who feels that, you
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  know, who just believes that progress will will continue
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  forever. Although I guess what's happened
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  with Trump and, you know, him having to defend Harvard and.
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  Yeah, so at all, I mean, yeah, that was about Trump and and all
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  and it's all playing out the basically the attack on science.
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  And I think Pinker is also in frontline against that right
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  now. So it's definitely in the right
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  camp there. Some of the guests that I
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  enjoyed because you you said you you have, you have the
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  opportunity to talk to your mates.
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  One that I particularly like on that front was with Oliver
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  Morton. So I don't know what was also
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  striking. And this is not just me saying
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  it, but sometimes, Mark, you can be a bit of a chameleon.
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  So in the episode with Oliver Morton, you seem to be all over
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  geoengineering. And then when we're having
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  Roblox on your Roblox is quite against the concept of
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  geoengineering, you throw me in front of the bus.
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  So now I'm having the opportunity to talk to that.
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  So we're be sad on Geo engineering, Mark.
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  I have a very firm position on it until that changes, which
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  which you almost heard happening in real time when I was talking
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  to Oliver. I mean, he's such an eloquent.
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  He's such an eloquent speaker. He's a really persuasive
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  thinker, and he's obviously written a whole book on this, so
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  he knows the issue inside out. He campaigns on it.
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  He works with the Degrees Initiative, which is trying to
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  help developing countries have more of a voice in this
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  conversation as it comes up in the broader kind of climate
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  space. And yeah, I have a huge amount
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  of respect for that. But do I think we should rush
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  ahead and do Geo engineering? Well, I mean, nobody's actually
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  proposing that. I don't think even.
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  You. Nor am I, by the way.
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  I think what you, you don't personally want to release loads
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  of sulfates above Ghent in Belgium and just see what
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  happens, right? No.
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  But I do think we might need an emergency brake.
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  And that's because I do still see climate change as an
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  emergency that we're in, even though it's a drawn out one.
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  And again, this is not even for us.
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  But yeah, you know, about the wet belt concept.
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  And I'm slightly worried that if climate sensitivity is harder is
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  is higher than we're right now anticipating for, which is
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  something that I would like us to address in the future
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  episode. Things might turn out to be
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  worse than expected and we might need an emergency brake to save
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  people. And I think that's the case that
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  Oliver is making himself as well.
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  And I think that's the case that Cynthia Scharf also made and and
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  working on. So I'm happy that we at least
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  are able to talk about the issue and raise the issue.
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  And I hope as we plan it, we can do more on that.
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  Yeah, because the the bad idea was we shouldn't even talk about
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  true engineering, I think. Which is there is a sense of
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  that like that's complete taboo to talk about because it has.
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  Been I I think that's really. Changed Hazard and yeah.
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  I do think that's really changing.
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  I don't think there's been that much support for the, you know,
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  that it's not that that statement which was a moratorium
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  even on research. I think there's general
• 16:40
  agreement now that that research should continue, but there might
• 16:44
  that maybe should that should maybe have a moratorium on
• 16:47
  deployment to give some sort of safeguard to allow research to
• 16:51
  go ahead so that we can at least understand the issue better.
• 16:53
  But we'll see. I think on climate, though, it
• 16:55
  depends on how you define emergency.
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  Like an emergency for, you know, 1 country or one population is
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  not going to be the same for, for anyone else.
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  So there's always going to be this division of interest in
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  terms of, in terms of what, what the responses are to it.
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  So we'll, I guess, I guess we'll have to see in terms of one or
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  two other episodes that, that, that I really enjoyed.
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  I mean, I really think it's good that we focused a lot on
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  rewilding. So speaking to Rebecca Wrigley,
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  who's the chief executive of Rewilding Britain was really
• 17:27
  important for me. I mean, she's a mate as well and
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  she's also the partner of George Monbiot.
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  So it really is keeping it within the family.
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  But it's, I don't know. Because like This is why we
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  really care about lands bearing. But lands bearing isn't an end
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  in itself. It's in order to allow the
• 17:42
  return of the wild and to allow ecosystems to, to come back, but
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  not in directed ways. And this is what's so inspiring
• 17:48
  about Rewilding. It allows, it allows ecology to
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  come back in all of its, you know, all of its many forms and,
• 17:56
  and many guises. And the ecosystems of the future
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  won't be the same as those of the past.
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  It's not about making, you know, making biodiversity great again.
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  It's actually about, you know, allowing new anthropogenic
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  assemblages to to, to go in their own direction, which I
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  think is really, really exciting.
• 18:13
  Yeah. Well, there's that.
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  It kind of has. So because there is a rewilding
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  that that does have this sense of we're trying to restore,
• 18:22
  return, go back to something. But yeah, as Rebecca also put in
• 18:29
  there is that one. So yeah, there is, there is not
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  nothing to go back to. We are actively shaping that.
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  But it is a a wilderness assassin.
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  It is not, yeah, it is not agriculture, for example.
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  And as you said, those things go hand in hand, land sparing
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  agriculture allows for rebuilding.
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  And that brings us to Mike Rimwell's great episode, I
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  think. And that was one that was
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  heavily cheered on within the community because he's very well
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  spoken to the issue at lanceferring the missteps that
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  even the IPCC has made in in that on violence, etcetera,
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  which is daunting almost to to look at.
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  What were your reflections on on on Mike's episode?
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  Well, we had a great conversation.
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  I just enjoyed talking to him. I've read the whole of the book,
• 19:22
  obviously in preparation and it just because it covers quite a
• 19:26
  long span of time. It's another, you know, the
• 19:28
  biofuels thing is something that the environmental movement got
• 19:30
  so badly wrong. And but, and it shows how you
• 19:33
  get kind of path dependence and that it's been really impossible
• 19:36
  to reverse anything. I think he says in like 40% of
• 19:39
  the US corn crop goes into making ethanol, which goes into
• 19:42
  cars. I mean, what a complete waste of
• 19:44
  land, particularly now we've got EVs and nobody thinks that bio
• 19:48
  liquid biofuels in cars are going to be a way to to reduce
• 19:51
  carbon emissions. It's absurd.
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  So we should be able to just let's say, right, that was a
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  that was a mistake. It's gone, forget about it and
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  and switch off the tap of subsidies that go to the ethanol
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  industry. But that seems to be impossible
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  because now you've got a very powerful political lobby in red
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  states, which, you know, wants to keep the public public
• 20:08
  funding flowing. So.
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  It's that's the thing about some of these some of these bad ideas
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  is they've become very pernicious and they can last for
• 20:14
  a very, very long time. I'm a bit like, I guess, like
• 20:17
  the anti nuclear movement, which has lasted decades and I think
• 20:21
  it's probably on its last legs now, but it's taken a very, very
• 20:23
  long time. And you know, Rebecca to her
• 20:27
  Debruy, I can't ever remember how to pronounce her name
• 20:29
  properly, but she's written a whole book about the pro nuclear
• 20:33
  grassroots movement. So what?
• 20:34
  What did you think of that episode?
• 20:36
  Producer Rob. Well, the fun part of that is
• 20:38
  like because we both know a lot of the people involved.
• 20:42
  So it's it's it's fun for as an insider to hear some of the back
• 20:47
  story there. So that was that was why I
• 20:51
  enjoyed that episode particularly.
• 20:53
  But yeah, that insider story of the of the nuclear movement,
• 20:58
  which is in full develop on them, which we are many in many
• 21:03
  ways a part of. Yeah, that is what's so lovely.
• 21:07
  And it's also what was fun to talk about Taya, which is, yeah,
• 21:11
  she's she's part of we plan from the get go.
• 21:14
  So that was the conversation with Taya as well.
• 21:17
  Yeah, about how everything's always perfect in Finland,
• 21:20
  according to Taya. Yeah.
• 21:21
  Yeah, exactly. Nice to be patriotic, but I
• 21:23
  think she takes it a long way. Yeah.
• 21:28
  You know, I'm being flippant here.
• 21:29
  The point, the point that she makes is that the, you know, the
• 21:32
  Green Party is pro nuclear in in in Finland, you know, Greenpeace
• 21:36
  has, you know, dropped its anti nuclear stance.
• 21:38
  So it's like this is this, this is a real country, believe it or
• 21:42
  not, which has somehow managed to to to evolve the
• 21:46
  conversation. I think Tear personally actually
• 21:48
  has a has played a big and, you know, the rest of the world can
• 21:52
  kind of learn from Finland. Yeah, exactly.
• 21:54
  That's what we are basically have been trying to do Like, OK,
• 21:57
  can we just make the support of Finland or at least the finished
• 22:01
  Green Party we're which we're all in favor of right now?
• 22:04
  So, and also in terms of other We Planet people speaking to
• 22:08
  Patricia Nantesa, who's the We Planet Africa lead about the
• 22:14
  Just Stop Cooking campaign. For me, that was actually really
• 22:17
  kind of quite a moving conversation, even though we've
• 22:19
  worked together on this report, just because, you know, it's a
• 22:23
  matter of, you know, it's not often you talk about an issue
• 22:25
  which is a matter of life and death to really quite so many
• 22:28
  people. Yeah.
• 22:30
  I mean, it's like 700,000 people die each year in sub-Saharan
• 22:35
  Africa from, you know, indoor air pollution, respiratory
• 22:38
  diseases and so on, which is a bigger mortality, you know,
• 22:42
  death toll than malaria even. So, you know, this is an issue
• 22:46
  that has come about to a large extent because of this obsession
• 22:51
  with with stopping all fossil fuels, which, you know, sounds
• 22:54
  like something we should definitely do.
• 22:55
  We should stop all fossil fuels, but some that keeps a lot of
• 22:59
  people in Africa, a billion people cooking on, on, on, you
• 23:02
  know, charcoal and, and, and wood.
• 23:03
  And so there's always these unintended consequences of what
• 23:06
  sounds like a great idea in, in, in sort of in the abstract.
• 23:09
  But then if you don't look at the complexities and you don't
• 23:12
  see what's happening at the grassroots in different,
• 23:14
  different countries, particularly in the global
• 23:16
  South, then you can get into real trouble.
• 23:18
  I mean, that's what makes it interesting to be working on we
• 23:23
  planet, but it's also what makes it hard because, I mean, you
• 23:27
  need slogans for activism to to cheer things on or to move
• 23:31
  things more forward. But The thing is it's it's
• 23:35
  always complicated. The reality is always messier
• 23:38
  than than what you're trying to make of it in in the county.
• 23:43
  And I think by bringing humour and we yeah, we I'm pretty proud
• 23:47
  of the way that turned out. Critical studio of Tricia and
• 23:51
  Joel Joel's marvellous acting so we should have a but and on the
• 23:57
  issue. It also brings us back to Vijaya
• 23:59
  Ramesh and runs episode on, yeah, that climate justice isn't
• 24:04
  really always what the Western NGOs want.
• 24:08
  So yeah, we're really about looking at the trade-offs and
• 24:13
  the complexities. And it's there is really no
• 24:15
  simple lines that just stop or yeah, let's get rid of fossil
• 24:22
  fuels tomorrow. That's simply not possible.
• 24:25
  You came up with the title Just Stop Cooking.
• 24:27
  Did you get it from Just Stop Oil?
• 24:28
  I can't deny there is some influence there.
• 24:31
  Yes, it's there is a, there is a meta point there about it's,
• 24:39
  it's all, it's never that simple, right?
• 24:42
  Even though I appreciate and respect a lot of activism, it
• 24:46
  has to be there. You have to have those.
• 24:50
  Yeah. Those people that pull society
• 24:52
  forward, even if they're not always right from what they're
• 24:55
  saying, I still value that as a a necessary piece of a public
• 25:01
  debate. So even in saying even they have
• 25:05
  some bad ideas because, I mean, for example, what Roger Hallam,
• 25:09
  you you wrote a piece on that is saying billions of people will
• 25:13
  die. Yeah.
• 25:14
  Sorry. There is no sign supporting what
• 25:16
  you're saying here, but I can still appreciate having those
• 25:22
  people in the debate, even though we need to have checks on
• 25:25
  that, which is what we're afraid you do here, right?
• 25:28
  Yeah, if you, if you want to, if you want to kill billions,
• 25:30
  billions of people, you have to have much more rapid climate
• 25:32
  change than greenhouse gas driven, which you know, you need
• 25:36
  cooling, you need a nuclear war. And in fact, we did speak to we
• 25:40
  spoke to Alan Robach, who's one of the originators of nuclear
• 25:43
  winter. I cover his work a lot in my 6
• 25:46
  minutes to winter. But, and I mean how?
• 25:50
  How scary did you find that episode?
• 25:53
  Well, I read your book and I had to stop reading it because I was
• 25:57
  having nightmares Marks so Oh. That's brilliant.
• 25:59
  That's great. Pretty.
• 26:00
  Scary. That's scary enough for me.
• 26:03
  So I'm just I'm just still into denial period.
• 26:06
  So please leave me there. But one of the push backs that I
• 26:11
  received on that episode, and clearly we haven't done a good
• 26:15
  enough job so we'll have to have it back, is nuclear winter is
• 26:18
  the myth that's been debunked. And that's exactly what we're
• 26:23
  saying. No, that's not true.
• 26:25
  There's no studies that debunk nuclear winter.
• 26:28
  This modeling is very firm. It's been done over and over
• 26:31
  again. So I think we probably have to
• 26:35
  drill down into that deeper apparently, at least for some
• 26:37
  people. Yeah, and you can.
• 26:39
  You can see the mechanisms operating through volcanic
• 26:41
  eruptions and also wildfires and and even in fact in the in the
• 26:45
  firestorms that in 1945 at Hiroshima in the Hamburg a
• 26:50
  couple of years earlier. So it's not as if this hasn't
• 26:53
  been demonstrated in the real world as well as in models in
• 26:56
  terms of how you get this, you know, huge firestorm can
• 27:00
  generate A pyrocumulonimbus Thunder thundercloud, which puts
• 27:04
  this sort right up into the stratosphere where it can
• 27:06
  persist for a very long time and end up cooling the surface.
• 27:08
  So yeah, it's sadly real guys, nuclear winter and we need to do
• 27:14
  what we can to immediately escalate, de escalate rather.
• 27:19
  And it's funny the the nuclear war issue is now definitely
• 27:22
  sliding up the agenda I think due to well, whether it's Iran
• 27:25
  or Taiwan or Ukraine or so on in a way which it hasn't done for
• 27:29
  for many years. So feels like it's an issue that
• 27:33
  I think I don't know, we should we should campaign on a bit
• 27:35
  more. What do you think?
• 27:36
  I'm going to answer in the meta level here to avoid some issues.
• 27:41
  But I think if if we are if we plan is to be a new eco human
• 27:50
  and I want to put those two on an equal footing like
• 27:54
  environment and humans progress, that's liberate nature, elevate
• 27:59
  humanity. That's what it's about.
• 28:01
  We cannot have blind spots to true existential threats.
• 28:06
  And for that reason, I think yes, we need to at least have
• 28:09
  that conversation, even though it's not an easy one to have,
• 28:14
  and even though I think our core audience skews towards looking
• 28:19
  at solutions and positive things.
• 28:22
  And maybe we should talk about Hannah Ritchie, but I still
• 28:26
  think we cannot be blind to existing potential existential
• 28:30
  threats. That definitely includes
• 28:32
  nuclear. That definitely includes for me
• 28:34
  as well AI, even though I'm not on the AI hype frame, I still
• 28:41
  think it's a long term issue that needs to be looked at very
• 28:45
  carefully. But let's bring it back to
• 28:48
  positivity with Hannah Ritchie. I know you're you've just bored
• 28:51
  her upcoming book. So can we hope to bring her on
• 28:55
  again on that book? And can you already say
• 28:58
  something to it or is that off the record?
• 29:01
  I'm not sure, I'm not sure how much I can give away, but it's
• 29:03
  it's fifty. Well, it's 50 answers to common
• 29:05
  questions. I mean, having just read it, it
• 29:07
  felt very, very up to date. I mean, I always refer people to
• 29:10
  our world in data when they ask for references or, you know, any
• 29:15
  kind of data on, on what the things are that we're that we're
• 29:19
  talking about. So it must be, it must be fun to
• 29:21
  be Hannah Ritchie and have everything have all the answers
• 29:25
  directly at your fingertips. But the her books have the her
• 29:27
  books out I think in September, so we'll have her back on as one
• 29:30
  of the first episodes after our summer break.
• 29:32
  Yeah, it was definitely one of the episodes that was most
• 29:35
  appreciated all throughout, so I'm hoping she'll come talk
• 29:41
  about the book as well. Let's call this a season.
• 29:43
  What do we want to talk about for September?
• 29:47
  Gosh, I mean, there is just, there's so much to so much to
• 29:52
  get into. I want to talk about sharks.
• 29:55
  I want to do more on the oceans. Actually, we did do an episode
• 29:57
  with with Callum Roberts on on, on the the high seas protection
• 30:03
  idea because he was the lead author on a paper that I
• 30:06
  co-authored with him on the need to protect all of the high seas.
• 30:11
  So, you know, that in some ways that's a very kind of
• 30:13
  straightforward environmental campaign, but, you know, there's
• 30:15
  nothing between US and the likes of Greenpeace on that, I don't
• 30:18
  think. So it's, I think it's important
• 30:20
  that we do that, that we're not always just bashing that,
• 30:23
  bashing the green movement. It's not like the green
• 30:24
  movement's the major threat to the planet.
• 30:26
  I mean, it's got some stuff wrong.
• 30:27
  But actually, you know, we've got, we do have to tackle
• 30:30
  industrial fishing, the agricultural sector as well.
• 30:34
  But yeah, so I think I think we need to do more on the oceans.
• 30:37
  So we're rewilding the land. We also need to stop taking wild
• 30:41
  animals out of the oceans much as possible.
• 30:45
  Yeah. So I don't know.
• 30:46
  What, what? What thoughts have you got?
• 30:48
  Well, as I already mentioned, AII think I I would like to look
• 30:52
  in that into that issue. I don't know what it is.
• 30:54
  What is a bad idea? Is it a bad idea that AI is
• 30:57
  going to kill us all? Or is it a bad idea that AI is
• 31:00
  going to solve all our problems? I'm not even sure.
• 31:03
  Maybe we need both those perspectives because I've I've
• 31:07
  I've heard them read on both sides.
• 31:09
  Yeah, pretty convincing stuff. But I'm I'm really very much on
• 31:14
  the fence but. I think chat ChatGPT is killing
• 31:17
  creativity for a lot of people. That they're rat.
• 31:20
  But as an ECA moderatories, I would say it's a tool we have
• 31:23
  and you have to use a tool wisely that goes for nuclear,
• 31:28
  that goes for biotech and goes for AI, so.
• 31:31
  I meant to that. Yeah, and let let's see what
• 31:35
  else. I, I'm, yeah as a as an ECA
• 31:39
  boundaries, you're always a little bit tech savvy or at
• 31:42
  least nerdy about these things. So I'm really eager to hear
• 31:47
  someone talk about how we're going to decarbonize flying
• 31:50
  because the idea that we have to stop flying is not going
• 31:54
  anywhere. So I'd like to learn about what
• 31:58
  are the typical solutions that we have for it.
• 32:01
  I'd give a shout out to cleaning up, particularly so so Michael
• 32:04
  Lebrick and Brian. Have learned a lot from that
• 32:07
  one. They do a lot of that's right,
• 32:11
  they do a lot of the latest tech, whether it's electric
• 32:13
  planes and some, some of the new battery stuff or, you know,
• 32:17
  sustainable aviation fuels and it's great.
• 32:19
  And it gets more into the kind of nerdy details of, of, of this
• 32:24
  stuff. Also, I think Decouples a great
• 32:26
  podcast. There's a lot of a lot of
• 32:29
  nuclear on there, but I think they're probably the closest
• 32:32
  closest to what we're doing. But, and I listen to that as
• 32:36
  often as I can. I think it's fantastic.
• 32:37
  I also like the good Fight, but with the Asher Monk, Hopefully
• 32:40
  I'll get him over at some point. I just did a did a now for him
• 32:46
  on the good fight about my book. So it was really good to talk to
• 32:49
  him. And he's just, he's such a, you
• 32:53
  know, eloquent guy. And I think it's really reaching
• 32:55
  a big audience that that podcast.
• 32:57
  So yeah. Is that something we need to get
• 33:00
  into more, like on the democracy issue and social justice?
• 33:06
  It's that kind of stuff. Or.
• 33:08
  I think so. Otherwise you don't have, you
• 33:10
  know, you need to you need to understand what your politics
• 33:12
  are. And so I think we we need to
• 33:15
  discuss that more in our movement and otherwise I think
• 33:19
  we can just look, we can look right wing.
• 33:22
  I mean, I made this same point to Martin Boudrey, you know, if
• 33:25
  you're justifying industrial AG and you're, you know, bashing
• 33:28
  the Greens and they've got everything wrong, Like, aren't
• 33:30
  you just like another right winger?
• 33:32
  I mean, I think he's come back to that was, was pretty
• 33:35
  persuasive actually. He was, this is what this is
• 33:37
  what real progressivism actually looks like.
• 33:39
  It's it's about, you know, abundance for for everyone and,
• 33:45
  and, you know, celebrating and, and helping innovation to
• 33:48
  happen. I mean, what, what did you take
• 33:50
  away from that? Yeah, no, I, I definitely, yeah.
• 33:52
  And pretty well familiar with Martin's writing on that.
• 33:56
  So I for me, that's eco modern classics.
• 34:00
  So, well, we probably should get him on to dive a little deeper
• 34:05
  on that. No, definitely.
• 34:07
  That is, Yeah. What I, what I wholeheartedly
• 34:10
  believe, like all of these things, you can't just put put
• 34:14
  away industry as a bad thing. No, Industry is in many ways a
• 34:18
  liberating force. So you need to work with it and
• 34:22
  and take off the bad externalities that it has
• 34:26
  because it's going to have that. But if you can, then yeah,
• 34:30
  that's, that's the way forward. It's not in the romantic small
• 34:33
  scale future. We're having big problems.
• 34:35
  So we're we can't avoid using big solutions and industry is a
• 34:41
  part of that solution. There's no way around it.
• 34:44
  Yeah, well, I think we should wrap this up now.
• 34:46
  I've got to go and visit, visit a rewilding site up in the Black
• 34:49
  Mountains with some very, some very rare orchids.
• 34:51
  So I like to see the stuff in, you know, in the real world and
• 34:54
  not just talk about it. I'm sure you do too.
• 34:56
  Absolutely, I'm going to Sweden after this.
• 34:58
  So also to see nature cap outs. It's been fun.
• 35:03
  I've I've really enjoyed you as a host, Mark.
• 35:06
  I think you've done really well. I so I want a shout out to
• 35:09
  Tyrone on our team and Christian and Maria Laura for research.
• 35:14
  So it's a team effort, but you're the talent here.
• 35:17
  So a special shout out to you, Mark, and I'm really eager to
• 35:22
  get into more bad ideas. You're very kind, producer Rob,
• 35:25
  and it's just good to see your face.
• 35:26
  Normally you're a little box at the top of the screen which is,
• 35:30
  which is muted, so for the audience to be able to hear you.
• 35:33
  Great. So I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll stick
• 35:35
  with that for. The audience to be able to hear
• 35:37
  you is a rare treat for everyone.
• 35:38
  But yes, off you go to back to your little box and we'll we'll
• 35:41
  see everyone else in well in, in Season 2.
• 35:45
  Yes, September, about September. So all right.
• 35:49
  Cheers Mark. Thanks so much for listening to
• 35:54
  Saving the World from Bad Ideas, a We Planet podcast we plan.
• 35:58
  It's a movement of citizens and scientists dedicated to
• 36:00
  defending the science and solutions we need to save the
• 36:03
  world. Please do subscribe and share a
• 36:05
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• 36:07
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• 36:09
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• 36:13
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• 36:16
  Just go to Saving the World from badideas.org or
• 36:19
  weplanet.org/podcast right now. See you next time.