84: The 2020 Christmas Lectures: A User's Guide to Planet Earth with Dr. Helen Czerski, Prof. Chris Jackson and Dr. Tara Shine

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:05:40] But there's that thing. There's the thing, Chris. I mean, you know, you've said it yourself. The climate has always been changing. I mean, isn't this whole thing completely overblown I mean, as you said, I mean, the climate is always be changing. Why would we be worried now when it's always been changing? I mean, why, why?

Christiana Figueres: [00:05:53] Have you noticed how Paul wants to be fired from this podcast?

Chris Jackson: [00:06:01] I'm well trained in this conversation, so.

Christiana Figueres: [00:06:03] Are you? OK, Let's see your training.

Chris Jackson: [00:06:06] I guess we as a species weren't around when some of those climate extremes occurred on Earth. So to actually say it's been hot it's been cold in the past is kind of a bit daft, really, because it's about the limits to our life, us as a species, not to other things that have lived. The other thing that is of great concern is the rate of change. It's the pace of change, the pace of carbon dioxide additions to the atmosphere, and accordingly the rise in global temperatures. So there's only one time in Earth's history when the rates of CO2 additions to the atmosphere was as rapid as it is now. And that was when the Chicxulub Impact Crater was formed off Mexico about 65 million years ago. And that was an incredibly catastrophic event.

Paul Dickinson: [00:06:47] Is that when we lost the dinosaurs or?

Chris Jackson: [00:06:49] Well, that's when we lost the flightless dinosaurs, yeah. So the ones that couldn't fly. So I think that's my response to that question is, I think it's a false equivalence to when people ask that question. But that's what my lectures about.

Paul Dickinson: [00:07:03] No, to be honest, Chris. I've spent 20 years working on climate change, I got a book about, from a scientist a while ago, and I only managed to get halfway through it because every 10 pages was about the next 50 million years. And then the next 10 pages about the next hundred million years. And after about two weeks of this being by the side of my bed, I kind of. But I mean, that's the point, right? You study insane lengths of time, right?

Chris Jackson: [00:07:24] Yeah, that's what we're trying to do, is to look at rates of change and types of change and look at those in a different kind of temporal lens. So, you know, where people think ten thousand years ago is a long time. We think it's kind of, you know, yesterday. And in fact, the rock record of what's changed in the last ten thousand years is actually quite hard in some ways for geologists to read. It's actually sometimes easier to look at these longer-term changes in what we call deep time, so tends to tens of millions or hundreds of millions of years or even billions of years ago.

Christiana Figueres: [00:07:56] So Neil Armstrong told us that rocks remember. To that, I would add and rocks talk. So, Chris, can you catapult yourself to, I don't know, ten thousand years from now? And what would the difference be between those rocks that today are remembering the past and those rocks that will be speaking about today but ten thousand years from now? What's the difference in what they're going to say?

Helen Czerski: [00:08:27] Chris has got a pet rock. It's OK.

Chris Jackson: [00:08:30] I've got plenty of pet rocks. They're all competing for my affections downstairs on the shelf. I think one thing we'll see in the rock record and you know, that records our time on Earth may be an increased amount of plastics because, you know, they're not going to degrade like many biodegradable objects. And so, therefore, in the deep sea record, especially where we have low energy conditions and not a lot of colonization of the seabed by animals to break things down. There's not a lot living down there in certain patches. We're going to have a better chance of preserving layers which are rich in things like plastics. We also may have layers which are rich in radionuclide so things which are recording nuclear weapons testing. And so we will have this body of human-generated materials, which we've never had in the geological past. And therefore that may be a discrete marker in the rock record. And like what I'm interested in is, whether it's literally going to be a layer that all of human history is going to be in a bed, we call it in geological terms, which is like this thick, 10 centimeters thick, or whether it's going to be a succession of rock. You know, like we could go up to a cliff face and see changes in different human activities recorded in the rock layers. That's kind of an open question.

Paul Dickinson: [00:09:48] And we've got to do something. I don't want to be in the period that's remembered for like atomic bombs and plastic. It just doesn't work very well.

Chris Jackson: [00:09:55] It's not great luck, is it? Sorry, have I brought the mood down already?

Christiana Figueres: [00:10:03] No, no, no. I think you're warning us. Right? Warning us that the rocks are already talking about how stupid we humans have been. Will they forever talk about how stupid or will they say, OK, that was a fleeting moment in which humans were as stupid as this, and then they actually woke up and regenerated the planet? That is the big question. Right? That we're actually and we know what we ought to be doing now. So, Helen, that brings us to you, actually, because you have spoken quite a bit about the relationship between oceans and the behavior of oceans and the behavior of humans. And you have spoken eloquently about how the behavior of oceans has been affecting the behavior of humans. According to Chris, that has actually now reversed. Its the behavior of humans that are determining the behavior of oceans. Is that your conclusion?

Helen Czerski: [00:11:09] Well, so why don't we step back a bit from that? I have got a right B in my bonnet about the oceans, which is probably a separate topic. So one of the things that strike me, so my lecture is about the engines because the oceans are the heart of the planetary engine. And so the thing that's important is that if you want to understand how the planet works, you need to understand how the ocean works. And one of the things that is very notable to me, because no one really thinks about the ocean. Humans, they look across the top of it, they see waves, they sort of assume there's nothing underneath. Which is very arrogant because that's what's keeping us all going. So the thing that I think is that there needs to be a kind of shift in perspective and you have to understand how the engine works before you've got any kind of framework for doing something about it. And the thing is that with the oceans, it was really interesting putting this lecture together because really it's such basic ocean science. And yet, almost like the people, you know, the camera crews and the directors in the lecture like, oh, I didn't know that. And it's basically the equivalent of telling someone that humans have a skeleton. And so there's this really fundamental framework about the ocean we just don't have. So my lecture is all about this blue spherical engine that runs planet Earth. And often when we think about the oceans what we hear about, as Chris said, is the plastics and the overfishing. And it's not that, you know, these are big problems, but if you look at what the ocean does on a planetary scale, this is our thermostat. Basically. This is the battery. This is where the energy is. And this is what stops us getting super hot and super cold every time we spin around to face away from the sun and come back again.

Paul Dickinson: [00:12:45] How does it do that?

Helen Czerski: [00:12:47] Well, water is a really good place for storing energy. It's basically like a battery. So so when the sun shines on the ocean, the ocean warms up a little bit because it takes a lot of energy to heat up the ocean by very much. But that energy can be released later. So it acts as its buffer. So it doesn't ever get super hot because if there's extra heat energy, it goes into the ocean and doesn't have to get super cold because if there isn't enough, if it's a really cold day, then the ocean gives some energy back and heats things up. And so it's this kind of buffer in the middle and it's doing the same with carbon. It's acting as a buffer and the carbon buffer is a complicated thing. But anyway, it's acting as a reservoir of carbon

Christiana Figueres: [00:13:24] Absorbing, absorbing a lot of the carbon.

Helen Czerski: [00:13:27] But it holds this enormous amount of, you know, 60 times as much carbon in the ocean as there is in the atmosphere. And so I can talk about the ocean for hours and I am quite proud of almost managed to have a whole lecture without mentioning the fish because the ocean is not just where the fish live. It has this really important engine function for planet Earth.

Paul Dickinson: [00:13:46] The fish live somewhere else. Or what's the point?

Helen Czerski: [00:13:49] Well, they're part of the engine. The fish are there in the ocean. I don't mind fish. They're very nice. I tend to think they should stay in the ocean. I don't eat them. But anyway. But they are a living part of this engine, but they're only part of it. So biology is important, but it's a part of the engine. And the physical nature of the engine affects the biology because, you know, the currents and things carry the fish around carrying the nutrients around all of that. But the biology also affects the physical engine by determining how the carbon moves around, for example. So it's like, you know, the fish are just like your kidneys. It's very nice. Everyone should have kidneys. This is a good thing. But there's more to a human than your kidneys and there's more to the ocean than it's fish. And it's kind of a shift in perspective. So that's what my lecture is all about.

Christiana Figueres: [00:14:37] So Helen, take me one step farther. So, with that analogy, I was going to say, is it the blood system? But you're saying it's the heart, it's what pumps.

Paul Dickinson: [00:14:48] It's the engine. The engine.

Helen Czerski: [00:14:49] Yeah. You can add on the circulatory system. I'll take that. Put together.

Chris Jackson: [00:15:00] I think that you know, as a geologist, I guess there's things like plate tectonics and vulcanology and the way that carbon dioxide is moved and consumed as the ocean helps transport carbon around that's as important. And so I guess in my mind, as a geologist, as a land dweller looking to the sea, I do see it's a really important mechanism by transporting energy, but also bits, you know, really important role in the carbon cycle. So circulation system does sound. I don't know, it just feels more correct to me, Helen, but I don't know.

Christiana Figueres: [00:15:29] Well, but wait a second. The circulation system would not circulate anywhere if it didn't have the heart pumping it.

Chris Jackson: [00:15:36] Yeah, that's true.

Paul Dickinson: [00:15:37] I asked a doctor once what percentage of people die of a coronary arrest? And they said 100 percent of people. Yeah, that's a very important organ. That's a very important organ.

Helen Czerski: [00:15:46] Actually, so one of the points we make in the lectures and we should let Tara get her in here is that the point is that there's no right and wrong case. What we have is three different perspectives, all looking at the same thing. And that actually the entire point of having three lecturers is that no one's having those arguments about whether physics is better than chemistry. I'm a physicist. Obviously, physics is better. That's not the point. The point is that you need all.

Christiana Figueres: [00:16:12] We'll let that one go by. She didn't say that.

Helen Czerski: [00:16:16] But you need all of those perspectives. You're looking at the same thing and sometimes you're looking at the same science. But it's the framework like you used to look at it that takes you somewhere next. And that's why it's important that the three of us because it's not that any one of these perspectives is the right perspective, it's that what humans need to do is kind of hold all of them in their head. All of these things are correct. And it's not like there's one version of science. It's just that you have to hold these multiple ideas to understand this one thing because it's so complicated. And that's really what we're saying at the beginning of the end. And now we should let Tara say what's in her lecture.

Paul Dickinson: [00:16:53] Land, Water, Air.

Christiana Figueres: [00:16:54] And humans. And so I'm thrilled that you just said that, Helen, because I just spent the whole afternoon talking about this, how we have to, you know, get away from our thinking in dichotomies. It's either this or that. It's actually both and also at the same time and hold all of these realities in equal standing and understand that the reality is that they are interconnected. That's the reality. We can't choose one over the other. However, we all belong to the human species. So I want to turn to Tara because, Tara, now you've heard Chris and Hellen speak to this issue, let's say, from a systemic point of view. But my sense is that you look at this from the individual point of view and how do we interact with that systemic complexity that we think is out there but actually is inside of us also. So, Tara, are you going to give us a tiny little sense of what your lecture is?

Tara Shine: [00:17:59] Yeah, no, I will happily give you a tiny little sense. And I think if we stick to the analogies we had a minute ago, we were talking about, you know, is the ocean the heart, how does the circulatory system of the ocean link to the circulatory systems in volcanoes and lava, for example? Well, another part of that system is the respiratory system. And in all of this, we're not going to fight over who owns the brain or not. The whole idea is to try and bring you a holistic picture of what it is that the planet works and what the key systems are and how they interact. That's why there's three of us, as Helen was explaining. And so my job in the third lecture is to look at the atmosphere and if people have a hard time connecting with the ocean, they have an even harder time connecting with the atmosphere. So, yeah, you breathe air, but you don't think about it. The atmosphere is there. But how often do you think about that beyond clouds? Or maybe when you need to go in an aeroplane or something. So we unpack the atmosphere, we look at it, we start from our own breath, in lecture three and we follow that through into what does that mean in terms of what air is, what's it composed of? And we come back around to carbon and carbon dioxide, which Chris kicks off with and looks at quite a lot in his lecture on the carbon cycle. And we're like, well, what's happening with carbon? And, you know, I love this question. How can something as natural as the carbon dioxide we breathe out, be also bad for us and a pollutant and be destabilizing our earth? It's just a tiny little fraction of the atmosphere, and yet it's causing us all these problems.

Tara Shine: [00:19:28] And so in my lecture, we unpack that and look at how the levels of carbon dioxide are rising. But, you know, Chris has also looked at that from geological time and right up to the present day. But then we have to ask, like, well, so what what does it mean and how much have we warmed the planet by already? And how is that warming experienced and how are those impacts uneven? How does that vary according to where you live? And then, of course, this will be no shock to you, Christiana. I look at the fairness and unfairness of climate change in terms of where do these emissions come from? Are the impacts evenly distributed around the Earth and all of this to try and get around to, well, and so what on earth do we need to do with it? Because it is this point, we either are the race that is known for having left a layer of plastic in the rock record or as you said, we are the human species that learned and that was enlightened and turned back from the brink and created a long future so that in 10000 years we're still here and we're still laying down a geological record that we're proud of. And so when we, in this lecture, we're going to look at. Yeah, what can we do about it? What power do we have as a society, as individuals? And how do we look after this atmosphere that is such a tenuous thing and an intangible thing? How do we look after it better?

Christiana Figueres: [00:20:53] So now here's the challenging question for all three of you. If I were a 10 year old Paul Dickinson who used to go to these lectures and I listen to the three of you, I would be deathly afraid. I would be terrified because, you know, here you are basically saying to me, you are in such bad shape. So what do you do in these Christmas lectures that are basically meant for families? And we want the 10-year-olds and the 8-year-olds and the 14-year-olds to be coming to these Christmas lectures. How do you put these messages in a context so that, A, they're understandable, although I am totally aware of the fact that kids nowadays are born with a completely privileged chip in their brain, that we didn't have so much, much quicker learners than we were. But, yet, how do you put all of these concepts into a context that is A, understandable, B, manageable to digest emotionally for a child and C, something that children walk out from going, yes, I'm going to do this, I'm going to contribute to this. How do you get to the exciting yes of a child? Any of you. All of you. I want an answer from all three of you.

Tara Shine: [00:22:15] Yeah, we thought about this so much, Christiana, because we in particular thought about the year that we're in. And we thought about all the stuff that, you know, my kids, Chris's kids, the kids that any of us know have had to go through already in this year. And one thing we were certain about was we were not going to add more doom and despair to their year. They've had enough. And so whilst we respect this audience and our audience is sort of an 11 to 17-year-old audience. And then families that watch this between Christmas and New Year, we want to be honest with them about the facts and we want to be entertaining with the science and that's a whole part of the Christmas Lectures ever since Faraday started them in 1825 is that it is theatre. It's science through theatre. So that helps to kind of bring it to life and make it a little bit more lighthearted. But we have throughout this a great sense of what the solutions are. You spoke about the need to regenerate the planet. And we look at some of those themes around what our role is in regenerating the planet.

Tara Shine: [00:23:14] And we also remind that there's a lot of things that we know about already. You know, this is something I say to young people all the time, Christiana. People like you have been working on this for 30, 40 years. I'm coming up there a little bit behind you, Paul, as well. There's a lot of us that have been laying the foundations of boring kinds of climate policy and technology development and all these kind of things that are ready now to be scaled up. And so we're not leaving all of this to the young people in the next generation with no work done. We have a good lot of work. What we need to do is do more of it and do it now. And I think we want to get them excited about the potential that that holds for creating a better world and a better life for them. So it's not even just about stopping the plastic getting stuck in the geological record. It's about making a better future, a better, happier, fairer society for them to live in. And I hope we can get them excited about all of that.

Christiana Figueres: [00:24:05] Chris, how do you do that, or Helen? Go ahead.

Helen Czerski: [00:24:08] Well, it's I mean, it's a great privilege of the Christmas lectures that you get to work with people who are very good at the demos in the theatre, as Tara said. But I think that a large part of this is there's a lot of wow in science, especially for kids at that age. They're hearing a lot of this for the first time, you know, not necessarily the horrid bits of climate change, but the how the engine works. And there's so much you are enabled if you have a framework where you understand what's going on so I pedal outrigger canoes with Hawaiian communities who know the ocean very well. And there is a saying that you can't protect what you don't understand and you won't protect it if you don't care. And I think the place we can really help is actually that first bit, is that if you understand suddenly everything else makes sense. I think for a lot of people in society now, it's all bad. Like plastic is bad. This is bad. That's bad. And there's no context for it. It's like, well, what's the alternative? What actually is the fundamental problem? And so I think I feel certainly with my lecture that I can talk about the amazing thing that the ocean is. And actually, that by itself is a lot of the framework that is needed, because then all the other pieces, like having a Christmas tree and having baubles, if someone just throws Christmas tree baubles out. You just got this pile of buobles, right? You don't know what to do with them, these Christmas decorations. But if someone gives you a Christmas tree, then you can hang them on the Christmas tree and go, oh, now I know where it goes, it goes here on the tree. And then I think the hardest thing for young people now is everyone's just throwing baubles at them, but they're not baubles, they're really grotty, horrid bits of information, like everything's dying and they don't have anywhere to put it. There's no way to put that information. And it's really empowering to be able to go, oh, this bit goes there. And now I can see the system. I know what to do about it. So I think these lectures are about the wonder of the. 

Christiana Figueres: [00:25:47] A conceptual mapping.

Helen Czerski: [00:25:49] Yes, exactly. We are drawing the map and you can say, OK, now we can navigate a route across the map because we know where we are and then we can decide where we're going. And I think I might be in the bonnet. It's actually a thing that is part of the news cycle. And I'm sure you have seen this and plenty of others that everyone says, well, what's the bad story? Tell us the story and you're like but there's this whole thing over here that unless you understand that, the story isn't really telling you the picture, but everyone wants the short story. And so there's all this context which is lost. So people, you know, you're sort of powerless and it's the way the media works. But then the great thing is, if you can provide that context everything else then sits on top of it. And I think that's what we can do in these lectures.

Chris Jackson: [00:26:31] Yeah, I was just going to say as well that the going back to a question of how are we going to let people leave the theater, virtually in this case, with that sort of understanding? I think you touched on it briefly there, Helen. But the demos, I think one thing is this very visual bit of science in this very sort of practical bit of science. Kinesthetic learners, I'm one of these people, when I was younger and I can't understand anything else. Horrible at physics, I was horrible at maths. Things that were abstract to me, I needed them to be first posed in a physical framework, really, and then to add the science to understanding how that worked. And I think that's what demos do. I think the demo tread a line between theatre, drama, wow, and being grounded in accurate science. That's the thing, is the science needs to be accurate, but we need to make it not like grim and grisly like science really often is in the lab. We need to bring it out of that and make it like appealing so that people come away with a visual understanding, if not a deep understanding. They still at least have a visual understanding of how a process works that myself, Tara, or Helen talk about.

Christiana Figueres: [00:27:41] So Paul is chomping at the bit to get in here. But I know you're not allowed to speak about your demos. I know that. I got that. Let's not spill the beans. But can one of you define the word demos? When you speak about the demos being very helpful, what do you mean by a demo? Can you just define the word?

Chris Jackson: [00:27:59] Basically, something that is on fire?

Paul Dickinson: [00:28:02] A very large explosion. It's a demonstration, it's a demonstration of something. And I remember when I was about, very young, I saw a linear motor at the Royal Institution and I was like, whoa, you know, that's pure magic.

Helen Czerski: [00:28:18] The way this works, basically, is that you've got a space, right? You've got this amazing round lecture theatre. If anyone hasn't had a look at the Royal Institution then look for a picture online, it is the most fabulous space because you're in the middle of this circular, almost semicircular space, you're down at the bottom, it's very steep and basically, you can do whatever you want that makes a scientific point and that is the freedom. You can make things come down from the ceiling. You can make massive, great things come in from the side. You can drop things, blow things up, set things on fire, you can color things in. You can have people doing stuff. Well, not so much this year, but anything that demonstrates a scientific point. And I think that's one of the things like, well, I've certainly got one of the many bees in my bonnet about science teaching. But I think it's.

Christiana Figueres: [00:29:06] You have a whole hive in your body.

Helen Czerski: [00:29:10] But the point is that there's this thing that science is sort of over here and it's in a little box and it's called science. And it looks like this. And you probably, I hate lab coats. I hate lab coats so much, nasty thing, go away. But the point is its this box and you need a lab coat and you need, you know, a special little badge that says scientists. And then what's in the box has a very specific form. And I think that's nonsense. I think you walk out into the world and you walk into a toy box of science. And I think the thing that these lectures allow you to do is to think of the most, because it's as Chris said, if the science is correct, it doesn't matter whether you demonstrate it with, I don't know, you know, ten hamsters or a clarinet. It doesn't matter if it gets the point across. There are no hamsters or clarinets.

Chris Jackson: [00:30:00] No there's not a clarinet, but.

Christiana Figueres: [00:30:04] We're not going to spill any beans here. No bean spilling.

Paul Dickinson: [00:30:07] Not allowed to talk about their demos.

Chris Jackson: [00:30:09] There are hamsters playing clarinets.

Paul Dickinson: [00:30:12] That I wanna see, although I'm suspecting a little bit of CGI there.

Christiana Figueres: [00:30:16] Or a clarinet playing with his hamsters.

Paul Dickinson: [00:30:19] It could work either way.

Helen Czerski: [00:30:20] And Darwin played the bassoon at worms. That's true. If you read Darwin's book, he wrote a book on the science of worms, and it describes him in his garden playing the bassoons to worms to see what they did. And I think he was very distressed to find they didn't do very much. He played quite a few musical instruments, because he didn't know, it was 1860 something.

Paul Dickinson: [00:30:38] It kind of depends on what you choose. You know, there are certain periods where the worms are much more responsive and it's a crazy time, you know because you're trying to communicate with the children. And then, like millions of children are striking because they're so concerned about these issues. And one of the things I remember when I read a book by James Lovelock, I remember I finished, I put it down and I kind of thought, this is a call to arms to the scientific community. And we had Thomas Crowther on the podcast earlier this year, and he's been vocal about the need for more multilateral engagement in the scientific community. Are you seeing more collaboration and more, how can I say it, more profile, more kind of activist scientists?

Tara Shine: [00:31:24] I might answer that from something I was doing in the United Nations Climate Change Convention there the other week, which was working on the structured expert dialogue. There's a big, long line of people looking at it, reviewing the long-term goals set by the convention. And we had inputs there from all kinds of learned climate scientists, social scientists, behavioral scientists, oceanographers, people studying everything from sea level rise to the geological record. And what you see through that process is you see a group of scientists who over time have really got to know each other and work really well together. But it's a group of people that keeps growing and growing. Now, its diversity is not enough because we still don't have enough of this research coming from the global south. But that platform for collaboration where somebody, and particularly in this year, where it didn't matter where you were, these scientists were able to collaborate, whether they were in the EU or China or Latin America. They just had to get around the time zone issue and to see the effectiveness of which they worked together to, in this case, find commonalities in the themes across all of the three special reports that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change put out over the last couple of years was pretty impressive, to me, how they organized themselves, work together, presented together and gave each other respect and a turn to take the limelight. And one thing or another, I found that really impressive. So I think we need to do an awful lot more interdisciplinary collaboration. And I hope we model that really well in the Christmas lectures this year. That's one of the things that we want to do. But while there's room for improvement in the world, I see some good hopeful signs out there. But Helen and Chris actually work in academia so they might add to that.

Helen Czerski: [00:33:12] Well, I think, I mean, there's a big elephant in the room when it comes to all of this. And it is that collaboration is time-consuming. And I certainly know lots of scientists who care very, very much about all kinds of things and would love to do more. But frankly, at the moment, that teaching is increasing in admin and load. And this is not just an academic moaning, you can measure that, you know, the things that are expected from universities, you know, engaging with all these things, talking to schools, talking to policymakers, you know, all of this. And the problem with this kind of collaboration and I have been involved in projects, perhaps not like the one Tara said, but, you know, these big collaborative projects. And the thing is, you have to talk for a long time before anything comes out of it so anyone is going to go, oh, that's definitely a good thing. And I think the problem is there's a huge amount of will in the scientific world to do useful things. But we have to accept, I think, that this role of academic is, you know, you can't do everything. And there's a real problem here that's holding things back because I understand there are lots of philosophical arguments to say. Obviously, the same people that should be talking to the policymakers are teaching the students that are doing the cutting edge research are obviously, this should all be in one person. But those of us who are actually, you know, on the sharp end. There is only one of us. It's been quite a hard year. Leave us alone please.

Helen Czerski: [00:34:24] And so I think actually what the only way this is. So there's no shortage of will. Scientists in general, we have to collaborate for, especially in the environmental sciences, actually, that's one of the reasons I like being an ocean scientist. You have to, you're on the ship, you have to collaborate. You only get collaborators because everyone else just doesn't get anywhere. And that's not the problem. The problem is how do you build a system which allows this very specific expertise because you do need very deep expertise to build up, but also allows the time for really, you know, careful, slow collaboration, just having tea with people. Most academics don't have time to have tea with people. And it sounds.

Christiana Figueres: [00:35:03] It's such a good point because. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we're so prone to say we have to collaborate. Radical collaboration, but it is very, very time-consuming. You're right.

Chris Jackson: [00:35:12] But isn't the problem we're conflating the word scientist with the word academic? And I think most scientists work outside of academia. And as soon as the question is posed, scientists who do this, instantly and it's partly by selling. As we often think of academics, but most academic, most scientists are not in academia. And so actually there's a huge body of expertise which operates outside of higher education, which may be by definition of it being their jobs to do so can collaborate to make some advances in really key areas of climate science.

Helen Czerski: [00:35:46] I think that depends on the field quite a lot. Right? I would say.

Chris Jackson: [00:35:51] It does, but I still think we. And I agree with you about collaboration because I'm the arts person who's just flitting around between different things and working with, like we've talked about this before, mathematicians, physicists, chemisists, biologists.

Helen Czerski: [00:36:02] Chemisists? You've met some chemisists? I've never met one of those, you're very lucky.

Chris Jackson: [00:36:08] I mean, like you end up, you kind of end up spending a lot of time trying to make things work rather than doing things. And life at the moment is very hard for everybody. But I do think we should maybe want, one image I have is that academics work more closely with industry-based scientists as well. And I think there's a useful bridge there into some of the translations, policy and governmental, like input, because I think academics is sometimes not as well versed to do that as people in industry, having worked a bit in industry.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:36:42] So but just on that point, Chris, on that point, Chris. These, you know, when you said everything sort of conflates back down, or whatever the word is, to academic. And actually, when you talk about scientists being across industries, it's fascinating. What could pull that group together? How could that group get to know itself better? Because, you know, it's not peer-reviewed journals. It's more kind of like newsletters and meeting and, you know, all the rest of it. So I'm just wondering if there's a forum or if you know how the scientists of the world can get to know each other.

Chris Jackson: [00:37:14] I think there's things like conferences and obvious things like that. But I think the biggest problem I see is a lack of respect towards people who are non-academic scientists. And I read about it and I see it and we talked about this, Tara, in London, like academia can come with a whole lot of arrogance, which means that, well, unless you've made it in this, like classically defined, this is what a scientist is like. And you're out there in industry doing some stuff like 9:00 to 5:00 when I'm working my evenings and weekends, you know, like that doesn't count you in. But Tara, I don't know what you think because we've talked.

Tara Shine: [00:37:48] Yeah, no, I think it's really interesting because I'm a scientist and I don't work in an academic institution and I know lots of researchers who work in universities, but they're not academics. And so there is this layering and hierarchy, which I'm just not interested in. I don't really go for hierarchies very much. And they're not always the greatest thing for the collaboration that we're seeking. But I think it's really interesting and especially when you think about the young people that are in the audience for the Christmas section, as in the families, to know that, you know, being a scientist doesn't mean that you will wear a lab coat, never worn a lab coat in my life and I'm an environmental scientist, but I've been really mucky and had a great time in the outdoors, lots and lots. And that's what drew me to environmental science, but also that if you're a scientist, you can apply that science in so many different ways. You might work in industry. You might work, as I have done for years as a policy adviser. You work in international negotiations. You might work creating new technology. You might work as an advisor to investment bankers. Science can take you everywhere. And there are scientists in everything. And we need, I guess the collaboration needs to be, yeah, we need scientists to collaborate with each other, but we need leaders the world over in every kind of discipline to collaborate with each other. So the best results come from diversity, as we know, whether that's diversity of disciplines or gender or race or economic status, their level of education, whatever it might be. So, age yeah, age, too. So it's getting that, you know, scientists are people and scientists are people with great ideas. But when they put their heads together with other people called other things that also have great ideas, I think that's when we get to the gold.

Christiana Figueres: [00:39:34] So there are three of you and the temptation here, honestly, is to do an episode that is three times as long as our usual episode, because we would love to keep this conversation going. Unfortunately, that's not the way it works. Paul, how do we bring this to a close?

Paul Dickinson: [00:39:51] Well, I am contractually obliged and delighted to ask you all to just tell our listeners when you think about all you know, and it's a very great deal about this critical topic. Are you more outraged or are you more optimistic? And one of you like popcorn will go.

Tara Shine: [00:40:11] You see, for me, it's entirely predictable. I am an awful, what's the word?

Christiana Figueres: [00:40:21] I think you want to say you're a stubborn optimist Tara.

Tara Shine: [00:40:26] No, I know I'm a stubborn optimist. But I want to say, I mean, I'm an incurable stubborn optimist.

Christiana Figueres: [00:40:30] Incurable, I like that.

Tara Shine: [00:40:32] I am an incurable, stubborn optimist. So I'm always optimistic. But, you know, it's an intergenerational thing I think. Like, I'm optimistic because I refuse point blank to leave a not great future to the generations that, not just that come after us in some kind of distant way, but the ones that are like here going through school and university right this second. And I want them to know that I've been working hard for them and that I'm going to continue to and I want to have made it better by the time they're, you know, my son is 10, he'll be 18. He's ten now. He'll be twenty in twenty-thirty. He knows that those ten years are important. He will look that back and say, all right, you were working up in that office moment, this asset quite a lot. And what's the story? What did you achieve? He'd want to know that because he wants to have great opportunities when he leaves school. But yes, I can't stop being an optimist and I can slightly blame you Christiana.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:41:32] Good answer. Good answer Tara. Helen. Chris.

Chris Jackson: [00:41:38] I'm an optimist as well. But I think having prepared for these lectures and having learned more about how the earth works and what our positioning is presently in terms of climate change and also having lived through 2020, not just because of COVID, but because of all the other unrest, shall we say? In a normal year, I'd answer this question very differently. But I think at the moment I'm feeling pretty outraged and upset about the status of the world, really. So I think there's a lot of like, it's happening now context to my answer. But I am struggling to find reasons to be optimistic because I think a lot of the human behaviors that are required to tackle climate change, they're common to some of the other things we need to tackle. And I'm not seeing enough of those things happening, which is understanding, compassion, willingness to give up something for somebody else. I think so. Yeah. I'm sorry, I should be more positive, but I can't be.

Paul Dickinson: [00:42:37] No, understanding, understanding, understanding, compassion, and a willingness to give up something for others I think is basically, that's it. We either do that or it's over. Helen, the last word.

Helen Czerski: [00:42:53] So, I don't think there's a choice except to be optimistic. And that is because outrage doesn't convince people. I don't think, optimism changes minds. And I think the two critical things, I would phrase it slightly differently. It's kind of similar to what Chris said, kindness and integrity. And the only way you can be kind and the only way you really have integrity is if you're optimistic. And so I don't think there's a choice except to find ways to be an optimist, because that's the only way you bring people with you.

Tara Shine: [00:43:18] You need to note that down as a the definition of stubborn optimism Christiana.

Christiana Figueres: [00:43:21] That is the definition of stubborn optimism. All three of you, thank you so much. Honestly, what a delight. How wonderful to have you all three on stage together in a few days and the fact that your audience will be so much of a bigger audience because it's virtual. So that's the advantage there. And we will all be looking because we want to see those demos.

Paul Dickinson: [00:43:50] Yeah, no, it's all about those. They blow your mind. Unmissable. Thank you so much.

Helen Czerski: [00:43:55] We should perhaps say for your audience that the lectures will be broadcast on UK TV between Christmas and New Year. There will be a very short gap of a week or two before they go on the Internet when everyone can see them. So you might have to wait a little bit longer if you are outside the UK, but then they will be on the Internet forever and our colleagues will be using them to embarrass us forever.

Paul Dickinson: [00:44:17] Friends, thank you so much for your pionary work. Your passion. Your wit and wisdom. It's inspiring. Really good to talk to you.

Helen Czerski: [00:44:25] Thank you for inviting us. It's been a pleasure to talk to you.

Christiana Figueres: [00:44:27] And Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to all of you.

Paul Dickinson: [00:44:30] Happy holidays and happy new year.

Tara Shine: [00:44:33] Happy Christmas and thank you for having us.

Chris Jackson: [00:44:35] Merry Christmas too.

Christiana Figueres: [00:44:37] Happy Holidays, bye.

Clay Carnill: [00:44:49] So there you go. Another episode of Outrage and Optimism. I'm Clay, producer of the podcast. And on behalf of all of us here at Global Optimism, we want to thank you for an incredible year and thank you for listening. Before I jump into the credits, I have a small announcement. We are currently doing our annual listener survey and we want to hear from you. Yeah, you. We'd love to hear what you think of the podcast and what you want to see next year and beyond. So take a few minutes, fill it out. The link is in the show notes. Thank you. And speaking of next year, season three is coming soon. We're taking a short break off the air and we'll be back in your feed in mid-January with the third episode of our investigative series Into the Future of Transport sponsored by Neste. And then season three begins and there will be a new president by then, too. It's going to be amazing. By the way, do you like the sleigh bells? It's like Christmas in your ears. Here, let me turn them up a little bit. Too loud, sorry. OK, there, that's better. All right. Outrage and Optimism is a global optimism production and is produced by Clay Carnill, an executive produced by Marina Mansilla Hermann. Global Optimism is Sara Law, Katie Bradford, Lara Richardson, Sophie McDonald, Freya Newman, Sara Thomas, Sharon Johnson, and John Ward. Thank you to Emily Souders for making this week's episode possible. And thank you to Caitlin Allen for suggesting the Christmas lectures for this episode. Did you know that we take suggestion? We take suggestions.

Clay Carnill: [00:46:30] Podcast at globaloptimism.com. Operators are standing by. A thank you this week to the Royal Institution. You can support the Royal Institution by becoming a member, patron, or by donating. I've got a link in the show notes to check more out about that. And of course, a huge thank you to our guests, the 2020 Christmas lecturers, Dr. Helen Czerski, Professor Chris Jackson, and Dr. Tara Shine. The Christmas lectures will be broadcast on BBC 4 between Christmas and New Year's and available on YouTube in the New Year. If you're listening to this right now and it's not 2020 anymore, there's a link in the show notes you can click on to watch. if you enjoyed Dr. Tara Shine on this episode. We actually had her on as a co-host for an episode earlier this year. And guess where you can check that out? The link is in the show notes, I got you. @GlobalOptimism is the social handle we use for LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And if you're enjoying the podcast, please rate us five stars on Apple podcasts and write us a review. Thanks! Ok, Oh, that's a wrap on season two. Congratulations. You made it through 2020 and that's a reason to celebrate. Now we are just at the beginning of the most decisive decade in history and it couldn't be a more exciting time to be alive. We're going to be right here for the whole ride. So hit subscribe. Join us. It's going to be tremendous. OK, we'll see you in a few weeks. Stay safe. Bye.