One series at a time, we break down complex issues into simple questions. 

In this first series, we’ll explore climate change. Climate change is likely to affect almost every area of our lives… like a toddler with sticky fingers. But how did it become this way? What are we doing about it now? And what does the future hold?

We’ll ask smart people some simple questions and see what happens!

New episodes every Thursday.

From the University of Cambridge and Cambridge Zero

Climate change is likely to affect almost every area of our lives… but how did we get to this point? When and why did we first take notice of climate change? And why has climate change evaded our collective attention and action for so long?

We talked with professor of human geography, Mike Hulme, science historian and journalist Dr Sarah Dry and environmental economist Dr Matthew Agarwala to try to figure all of this out. Along the way, we discovered new ways of thinking about climate change, from a tragic story where the issue is constantly caught between opposing forces, to more hopefully thinking of it as a source of generative change and innovation. 

This episode was produced by Nick Saffell, James Dolan and Naomi Clements-Brod. 

From the University of Cambridge and Cambridge Zero.

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Thanks very much.

In this episode:

0:00 - Intro

03:15 - What was the starting point for human made climate change?

08:30 - Recap point

10:10 - The economics of climate change and modelling for the future.

14:45 - The tragedy and politics of climate change

16:05 - The concept of values

20:25 - Recap point

22:10 - Can we find a single answer or a single story to solve climate change?

25:50 - The concept of the wealth economy

28:00 - Denialism and climate optimism

32:35 - What we've learned from COVID

33:35 - Recap point

35:20 - Has democracy helped, or hindered climate change?

37:15 - Are there any reasons to be optimistic?

40:45 - In the next episode

Guest Bios: 

Dr Sarah Dry (@SarahDry1)

I write about the history of science. I have written about Victorian fishermen and risk, epidemics and global health policy, the life and loves of Marie Curie, and the history of Isaac Newton’s manuscripts. That last project has just been published in paperback: The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton’s Manuscripts.

My latest book is Waters of the World: The Story of the Scientists Who Unravelled the Mysteries of our Seas, Glaciers and Atmosphere–and Made the Planet Whole. It tells the stories of the scientists who have uncovered the mysteries of our oceans, atmosphere, icesheets and glaciers, and in doing so, helped us see the earth as an interconnected globe. 

https://sarahdry.com/home/

Dr Matthew Agarwala (@MatthewAgarwala)

Matthew Agarwala is an environmental economist interested in wealth-based approaches to measuring and delivering sustainable development. The pace of globalisation, innovation, and social, environmental, and economic upheaval leaves no doubt: 20th century statistics can’t capture 21st century progress. Matthew joined the Bennett Institute’s wealth economy...

Last episode, we talked about how we got to where we are now with climate change, but do we even know what’s going on with climate change right now? In this episode we’ll talk about what tipping points we’re approaching, how and why we’re still struggling to gain momentum toward action on climate change, and what difference it would make if carbon dioxide was a brown smelly substance.

To figure all of this out, we talked to a mathematician, Emily Shuckburgh, an engineer Hugh Hunt and a psychologist, Sander van der Linden. 

Along the way, we discuss solutions like geoengineering, creating a fake news ‘vaccine’ and opportunities for businesses to be more transparent about how their activities contribute to climate change. If you’re curious to find out more specific ideas about how we can build a greener future, check out Cambridge Zero’s Green Recovery Report here: https://www.zero.cam.ac.uk/green-recovery-report 

This episode was produced by Nick Saffell, James Dolan, and Naomi Clements-Brod. 

Please take our survey.

How did you find us? Do you want more Mind Over Chatter in your life? Less? We want to know. So we put together this survey. If you could please take a few minutes to fill it out, it would be a big help. Thanks very much.

In this episode:

0:00 - Intro

3:21 - How healthy is the planet at the moment?

4:35 - Are we approaching any tipping points?

6:45 - Do people understand the risk of climate change?

9:10 - Would a better understanding of the numbers help?

10:55 - What if co2 was a brown, smelly substance, would we treat it differently?

14:55 - Recap

17:30 - So how is fake news affecting action around climate change?

23:30 - We found solutions to the CFC problem and the whole in Ozone layer.

24:15 - Where do we think the responsibility lies?

26:15 - How can technology contribute to solving climate change?

29:50 - Can individuals make a difference?

31:15 - Recap

34:40 - What about societal level change?

37:45 - What are some of the more risky ways in which we could tackle climate change?

42:50 - Reasons to be optimistic?

Guest Bios:

Professor Sander van der Linden (@Sander_vdLinden)

Sander van der Linden is Professor of Social Psychology in Society in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. His research interests center around the psychology of human judgment, communication, and decision-making, including social norms and networks, attitudes and polarization, reasoning about evidence, and the public understanding of risk and uncertainty. He is especially interested in a) the social influence process and how people gain resistance to persuasion through inoculation and b) how people form (mis)perceptions of the social world, including the emergence of social norms in shaping human cooperation and conflict in real-world collective action problems such as climate change and the spread of fake news and misinformation. 

His research is regularly featured in the popular media, including outlets such as the New York Times, the BBC, CNN, The Economist, NPR, the Washington Post and Time Magazine.

For recent profiles on Dr van der Linden's research see here, here, and

The future is becoming harder to predict thanks to climate change and a global pandemic. But a large part of what the future will look like is in our own hands. The biggest challenge to creating a better future may be political rather than scientific or technological. 

In this episode, Diane Coyle, professor of public policy, Laura Diaz Anadon, professor of climate change policy, and architectural engineer, Ruchi Choudhary, join us to talk about how we can build a future that might not be anything like the past.

We cover topics like innovation, GDP, and how the uncertainty created by climate change can help propel policy and economic decisions. Plus, we look at some of the benefits that come with building a greener future together. 

In this episode:

0:00 - Intro

03:50 - What a sustainable future could look like

07:15 - What economic, political and institutional changes do we need?

09:45 - Informing behavioural change

11:15 - Recap point

13:05 - How important is innovation in resolving climate change?

17:55 - The importance of measuring wellbeing.

19:50 - What metrics speak to policymakers?

23:17 - International coordination. Distributing the burdens of climate change

27:05 - Recap point

30:39 - What impact will COVID have?

35:35 - What will be the legacy of 2020? What changes are here to stay?

40:00 - Circling back to what a sustainable future might look like

This episode was produced by Nick Saffell, James Dolan, and Naomi Clements-Brod. 

Please take our survey.

How did you find us? Do you want more Mind Over Chatter in your life? Less? We want to know. So we put together this survey. If you could please take a few minutes to fill it out, it would be a big help.

Thanks very much.

Guest Bios: 

Professor Diane Coyle (@DianeCoyle1859) (@bennettInst)

https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/about-us/team/diane-coyle/ 

Professor Diane Coyle is the inaugural Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. Diane co-directs the Bennett Institute where she heads research under the themes of progress and productivity, and has been a government adviser on economic policy, including throughout the covid-19 pandemic. Her latest book, ‘Markets, State and People – Economics for Public Policy’ examines how societies reach decisions about the use and allocation of economic resources. Research Interests: Economic statistics and the digital economy: lead researcher on the Measuring the Modern Economy programme at the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence. Competition policy and digital markets. Economics of new technologies. Natural capital; infrastructure.

Professor Laura Diaz Anadon (@l_diaz_anadon) (@CEENRG)

Professor of Climate Change Policy and Director, Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG)

Prof. Diaz Anadon has three main areas of research: The...

How and what we eat, and where our food comes from, these everyday choices that we often think very little about, have become increasingly relevant to climate change. 

With a global population projected to reach 10 billion by 2050, it is not unreasonable to ask: how are we going to feed all these people... and without causing more damage?

In this episode we’ll cover everything from how climate change will affect the way we grow and eat food, to the pros and cons of ‘non-poo’ fertiliser. Sound appetising?

Giles Oldroyd, professor of plant science at the new Cambridge Crop Science Centre, Helen Anne Curry, lecturer in the history of modern science and technology, and developmental economist, Shailaja Fennell, helped us connect the dots between food and climate change. They discuss how we ensure people around the world will still have food to eat as the climate becomes more unpredictable.

In this episode:

0:00 - Intro

01:30 - Why food production is relevant to climate change.

03:15 - Are we eating more? And are we eating more of the wrong kind of things?

05:30 - The reliance on the chemical industry and the role of inorganic fertilisers

08:30 - What are the main crops that we currently rely on globally?

13:15 - Are we eating less varieties of these crops?

14:35 - Why is it so important to maintain a wide genetic diversity of crops?

18:10 - Recap

21:02 - What crops are at risk due to climate change?

22:25 - How will agriculture adapt to a changing climate?

26:45 - The carbon footprint and the water footprint of agriculture.

29:33 - What can we learn from history and the past 100 years?

31:30 - Will food become more expensive?

35:35 - Recap

38:30 - Will there be a shortfall between what we produce now and what we will need to produce by 2050?

39:50 - Can we address global inequities in the food system?

44:15 - What do we need from leaders and policymakers?

45:50 - Reasons to be optimistic

50:00 - Recap and what's next.

This episode was produced by Nick Saffell, James Dolan, and Naomi Clements-Brod. 

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How did you find us? Do you want more Mind Over Chatter in your life? Less? We want to know. So we put together this survey. If you could please take a few minutes to fill it out, it would be a big help.

Thanks very much.

Guest Bios: 

Dr Helen Anne Curry (@hacurry)

My current research focuses on the history of efforts to understand and use crop diversity as a resource for agricultural development. In August 2020 I launched the project 'From Collection to Cultivation: Historical Perspectives on Crop Diversity and Food Security'. This project has its origins in my investigation of history of genetic conservation, especially the preservation of seeds and other plant materials in seed and gene banks. It is also the subject of my current book project, Endangered Maize: Indigenous Corn, Industrial Agriculture and the Crisis of Extinction. 

Dr Shailaja Fennell (@shailajafennell) 

Shailaja Fennell is a Co-Investigator on TIGR2ESS, a research programme to study how to...

In this last episode of the series, we’ll be exploring how stories work for and against climate change. 

We cover a lot of ground: from hippos and polar bears to how many times ‘sex’ and ‘tea’ were mentioned on TV between 2017 and 2018… so what’s all of this got to do with sustainability and climate change? Join us to find out!

Our storytelling experts this time are Richard Staley (lecturer in the history and philosophy of science, Sarah Dillon (author, researcher and broadcaster) and Martin Rees (cosmologist, astrophysicist, and Astronomer Royal).

This episode was produced by Nick Saffell, James Dolan, and Naomi Clements-Brod.

Please take our survey.

How did you find us? Do you want more Mind Over Chatter in your life? Less? We want to know. So we put together this survey. If you could please take a few minutes to fill it out, it would be a big help.

Thanks very much.

In this episode:

0:00 - Introductions

04:05 - When and how did we start telling stories about the environment?

08:30 - What is the purpose of a story and how do they work?

10:30 - Climate models and climate fictions.

12:53 - Models as fiction. The reliability of models.

13:30 - The climate in the past. Modelling the future to think long-term.

15:45 - Recap

19:00 - How we experience the weather and the climate.

20:05 - The importance of Indigenous stories.

22:55 - How does storytelling differ across the world

25:10 - Could there be one story to save them all?

26:55 - How frequently is climate change mentioned in mainstream stories?

29:10 - Engaging with climate change, without engaging with climate change.

30:15 - Do we think about climate change as climatic change?

31:25 - Can we use stories to communicate to policymakers?

Guest Bios:

Martin Rees (@LordMartinRees)

Martin Rees (Lord Rees...

Welcome (or welcome back) to Mind Over Chatter, the Cambridge University Podcast! One series at a time, we break down complex issues into simple questions. In this second series, we’re talking all about the future. We’ll explore the nature of time itself  - What even is the future? And is it in front of or behind us?  - and we’ll also cover some of today’s most pressing questions, like how will artificial intelligence impact democracy?

We’re going to be talking to people from all over the University of Cambridge… from linguists and philosophers to historians, biologists, demographers and many more besides!

We’ll cover everything: from the physics of time to Sapir-Whorf, the first linguistic theory to join Starfleet; from the fabulous fabulations of futures past to Elon Musk, Mars, and James’ measly net worth; from the future of wellbeing and mental health to an overabundance of Pop Tarts; from using participatory research to help create a more just future to the unequal distribution of My Little Ponies; from the future of artificial intelligence to animism and Hello Barbie; and from the future of reproduction to the maternal instincts of Darth Vader.

Please take our survey.

How did you find us? Do you want more Mind Over Chatter in your life? Less? We want to know. So we put together this survey. If you could please take a few minutes to fill it out, it would be a big help. 

Hello and welcome back to Mind Over Chatter! 

Please fill out our survey https://forms.gle/r9CfHpJVUEWrxoyx9 to tell us what your mind thinks about our chatter. Knowing what you think will really help us make the podcast even better… Now, on to the episode!

This second series is all about the future - and in this first episode we’re going to be considering what the future even is… Have you ever wondered how time works? It turns out, the answer is a lot more complicated than we thought.

Join our wondering and wonderful conversation with philosopher of science Matt Farr, professor of psychology Nicky Clayton, and professor of linguistics and philosophy, Kasia Jaszczolt. We’ll be talking about everything from physics to linguistics… and from broken eggs to Einstein’s theory of relativity. 

This episode was produced by Nick Saffell, James Dolan and Naomi Clements-Brod. Annie Thwaite and Charlotte Zemmel provide crucial research and production support for Series 2. 

[00:00] - Introductions

[02:10] - A bit about the guests’ research

[04:28] - Does time actually go from past to present to future? And does time really ‘flow’?

[06:04] - The A-theory of time and John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart

[07:53] - The B-theory and C-theory of time (and a little bit more about the A-theory too)

[09:53] - How do B-theorists deal with entropy? Can you un-break an egg?

[10:44] - The difference between the A-theory, B-theory and C-theory of time - does time have a direction? And does energy/entropy have a direction?

[14:12] - Recap of the first portion of the episode, reviewing A-theory, B-theory and C-theory of time

[18:58] - How the mind understands the subjective concept of time

[24:24] - How languages talk about time differently and why these differences matter

[27:11] - The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and how the way you talk about language affects the way you perceive and think about things

[30:21] - Recap of the second portion of the episode 

[34:02] - How do the mental and linguistic concepts around time fit with philosophical  concepts and physics of time?

[40:45] - How mental time travel works and how thinking about the past is different to thinking about the future

[41:40] - All biological organisms are subject to the laws of thermodynamics so we can’t remember the future or act towards the past

[42:55] - Cultural and linguistic differences in mental time travel and whether the past is behind us or in front of us

[45:46] - Is there a conflict between the psychological and linguistic models of time and the way physics handles time?

[48:20] - Recap of the last portion of the episode

[52:44] - Closing and thank you’s

If you want some more information about the different theories of time we discussed in this episode, this article by Matt helped us understand some of what was said: https://aeon.co/essays/the-c-theory-of-time-asks-if-time-really-has-a-direction 

GUEST BIOS

Prof Kasia Jaszczolt @KJaszczolt

Prof Kasia Jaszczolt is a linguist and philosopher of language, interested in meaning in language, in the mind, and in conversation – how it is composed and conveyed.

She has written five books (most of them for Oxford University Press) and over 90 articles on these topics. Some of her favourite research topics include time in language and thought and their relation to ‘real’ time, semantic ambiguities, theories of meaning and communication, and representing beliefs. She gives lectures