Shows
Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 22 - Epistemic justice and 'fact-shaming', with Gwen OttingerA key challenge for science in – and ‘for’ – the Anthropocene hangs on the extraordinary influence and authority that scientific knowledge now has in shaping public decision-making. Of course, science is needed to develop constructive and adaptive responses to many of the challenges of the Anthropocene. But it is also the case that it is only through science that we can even identify many of the challenges we now need to address, AND that science has been instrumental in CREATING many of those challenges in the first place. In short, then, science and its claims to definitive ‘knowledge’ are now inseparably...
2024-08-231h 15Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 21 - Education for the Anthropocene, with Zachary SteinMuch of the ‘science for the Anthropocene’ that we explore on this podcast focuses on the ‘cutting-edge’ of research and new knowledge. But there is another whole side to science that merits our concerted attention: education, or the transmission of hard-earned knowledge and ways of thinking from generation to generation. Our guest in this bumper summer episode, Dr Zachary Stein, has literally written the book on this agenda of ‘Education for the Anthropocene’, and much else besides. Discussing his hugely insightful work, we unpack how a system and vision of education – or a ‘paideia’ – is actually the very core of a flourishing civ...
2024-07-191h 50Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 20 - 'Novel entities', chemical pollution & irreducible ignorance, with Cynthia de Wit and Matthew MacLeodIn Episode 20, we continue with our theme of the planetary boundaries (PB), turning to perhaps the most perplexing of them: so-called ‘novel entities’, or the release of things that are ‘new’ into the environment, including chemical pollution, but also new life-forms, pharmaceuticals, radioactivity or nano-particles. As the notorious case of CFCs and the Ozone layer has shown (eliciting a planetary boundary all of its own!), the mass release and accumulation of such novel entities can have negative, and potentially irreversible, global impacts that take us entirely by surprise. Yet we continue the relentless development and release of ever more, and ever...
2024-06-051h 24Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 19 - Oceans & Planetary Boundaries, with Katherine RichardsonThe new planetary condition summarized as the 'Anthropocene’ is very much NOT limited only to the (still undeniably crucial) issue of climate. But how can science offer of more definitive characterisation? One of the most high-profile answers today to this key question is the emergent framework of the ‘planetary boundaries’, which clearly enumerate 9 (or 11, depending on how you count them) specific planetary-scale processes that are crucial to maintaining the extraordinarily stable conditions on Earth that have enabled the take-off of human civilisation over the last ten thousand years or so – hence the only conditions we have known as a species...
2024-05-171h 26Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 18 - "We need wisdom! Can the university provide it?", with Ioan FazeyA science FOR and IN the Anthropocene needs a fundamental shift of orientation towards prioritizing the cultivation of situated, strategic, ethical wisdom, or ‘phronesis’ – or so we argue (and have argued in previous episodes) in this podcast. But what does this rather abstract and programmatic statement mean? What is phronesis, in practice? And where, or which institutions of science and higher education, are going to support that cultivation? In Episode 18, we discuss these key questions with Ioan Fazey, Professor of the Social Dimensions of Environment and Change at York University, UK and a teacher of shamanic practices. In particular we exp...
2024-03-261h 25Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 17 - Air quality with Suzanne Bartington & Gary FullerAmongst the many environmental challenges of the Anthropocene age, air quality is exemplary in numerous ways. Air pollution is the no.1 environmental public health issue globally, causing approximately 7 million early deaths annually, yet it remains curiously neglected. As such it is something of an ‘invisible killer’, to quote the title of the book by Dr Gary Fuller, one of our guests in this episode, alongside Dr Suzanne Bartington, both of whom are UK Clean Air Champions. Part of the problem here is the sheer complexity of air quality issues: the number and diversity of pollutants and their chemical interactions; their...
2024-03-151h 11Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 16 - The Evolution of Knowledge, or Science AS the Anthropocene, with Juergen RennThis podcast is about how we can and must transform science so that it becomes fit for purpose in tackling the complex, unprecedented and even existential challenges of the ‘Anthropocene’ – ‘science FOR the Anthropocene’, not just of or about it. But what if we need to go one step further in our understanding of the relationship between science and our new planetary condition in order to rise to the challenge? What if science in many respects IS the Anthropocene, hence ‘science AS the Anthropocene’? This is the bold and persuasive thesis of eminent historian of science, Professor Jürgen Renn, Director th...
2024-02-251h 07Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 15 - Revisiting Science & Politics... and CivilisationThe relation between science and politics, knowledge and power, may sound like an arcane and abstract issue, a concern for eggheads and wonks. But, as events across many university campuses at the tail end of 2023 showed, it is very far being a dry and specialist issue. Rather how these two major elements of modern society are understood to be related – not least by society’s custodians of higher learning – directly shapes such central matters as the parameters of acceptable speech and action in public, and even what specifically is to be celebrated or condemned. Responding to the problems of the An...
2024-01-1259 minScience for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 14: Petrochemicals, plastics & pollution injustice, with Alice MahClimate change is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the only unprecedented ecological challenge we are facing in the 21st century. Another key arena, intimately associated with the ongoing assault on global biodiversity, is that of toxicity and pollution. In episode 14, we discuss these key issues with Professor Alice Mah of Glasgow University by zeroing in on a key, but much overlooked, protagonist
in the mass production and circulation of toxic chemicals and plastic pollution – the petrochemical industry. In her new book, Petrochemical Planet – Multiscalar Battles for Industrial Transformation (Duke UP, 2023), Mah illuminates
the almost invisible centrality of petro...
2023-12-201h 13Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 13 - Food-systems, soils and myth-busting, with Jess DaviesDo we only have 100 (or 60… or even just 30!) harvests left, as now many reports and media headlines have asserted? Our guest for Episode 13 of Learning to Fly, Professor Jess Davies, responded to this terrifying claim by deciding to knuckle down and see what scientific corroboration it has. As such, it is also a perfect example of the kind of high-impact interdisciplinary and myth-busting work she and her colleagues are now doing on numerous questions regarding the key issues of futures of food and agricultural systems. Join us for illuminating discussion not just about some key issues of the sustainability and...
2023-09-221h 11Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 12 - Building a Climate Majority, with Liam Kavanagh and Rupert ReadPoll after poll has shown for some years that a clear majority of the public are in favour of significant action on climate, and on other environmental crises, such as plastic pollution or biodiversity loss. Yet the politics of actual policy on these issues remains hotly contested and thus largely paralyzed, even in countries where outright denial of these problems is a fringe position. What we clearly need, in other words, is a climate majority, and an approach that will actually build this. In Episode 12, we turn directly to this key issue, in conversation with Rupert Read and Liam...
2023-08-311h 15Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 11 - Averting insect apocalypse, with Dave GoulsonBees - their decline and even 'colony collapses' - are surely amongst the most high-profile and concerning of our current ecological crises, so it was only a matter of time before we got to discuss them on this podcast. And, in episode 11, we are joined by a singular global authority on the issue, Prof Dave Goulson. Dave is not just a leading expert on bees, their behaviours and the disastrous effects of neonicotinoid pesticides, but also among the most enthusiastic and compelling advocates for the wondrous world of insect life as a whole. And he has much alarming news f...
2023-07-141h 12Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 10 - China, Just Transition & Cities, with Linda Westman and Ping HuangHow can China, the authoritarian technological superpower par excellence, have anything to teach us about an increasingly common rallying cry regarding climate action and responses to the Anthropocene, namely ‘just transition’? In Episode 10, we explore precisely this question and the fascinating and counter-intuitive answer that we do indeed have much to learn from studying China; in fact, that is essential that we do so. For this crucial discussion, we are joined by Linda Westman and Ping Huang, who help us dig beneath the headlines regarding this enormous, diverse, hugely dynamic and contradictory country which is globally so important regarding envi...
2023-06-121h 08Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 9 - Chickens, human-avian relations & the 'more-than-human' with Catherine OliverWhat is meant by the increasingly common phrase ‘more-than-human’? In Episode 9, we dive into this question, which is potentially so important for a science for the Anthropocene, by talking about… the humble chicken. We are joined for this discussion by the brilliant Catherine Oliver, a ‘beyond-human’ geographer and lecturer in climate change and society. Now bred in their billions (and modified) for eggs and meat, a closer look at chickens proves exceptionally revealing in terms of what they reflect back to us, good and bad, about human society, with which they have co-evolved for some 10,000 years. In fact, the chicken tur...
2023-03-281h 03Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 8 - Resonance and uncontrollability, with Hartmut RosaIn Episode 8, we stick again with the subjective side of the crises of the Anthropocene, but turning to a more explicitly sociological approach. How do the ways in which we relate to the world shape the problems of climate change and the environment? Pretty fundamentally, according to our guest, the award-winning social theorist, Hartmut Rosa. Indeed, for Rosa, this question of ‘our relations to the world’ is the key to understanding how we now find ourselves in such a mess… and is richly suggestive of what we need to do – in society more generally, and in scientific research – to get throug...
2023-02-161h 10Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 7 - Mind sciences and participatory climate policy, with Kris de MeyerIn Episode 7 we are keeping with the theme of the mind and climate change, but turning directly to the insights available from the mind sciences: neuroscience and psychology. Discussing these issues, we are in the excellent company of Kris de Meyer, who is a neuroscientist and Director of University College London’s Climate Action Unit. In this role, Kris has led numerous important collaborations with policymakers and stakeholders, including the exceptional programme of the Net Zero Innovation Project which funds and supports collaborations between UK local authorities and universities. Combining insights from these mind sciences with careful attention to ho...
2022-11-291h 33Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 6 - Mindfulness and climate action, with Jamie BristowIn Episode 6 we welcome our first external guest, Jamie Bristow, to discuss an issue that sits at the heart of the ‘Science for the Anthropocene’ initiative: mindfulness and the ‘inner’ dimensions of sustainable transition. Specifically, we discuss the landmark report released in May 2022 by Jamie and co-authors, Rosie Bell and Professor Christine Wamsler, on ‘Reconnection: Meeting the Climate Crisis Inside Out’ (which can be easily accessed on the Mindfulness Initiative’s website). We discuss what ‘mindfulness’ is (and is not), what taking it seriously opens up regarding more promising ways to do climate action, its deep compatibility (despite more superficial incomm...
2022-08-071h 22
Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 5 - Deliberative democracy and climate action, with Rebecca WillisIn Episode 5 we welcome Professor Rebecca Willis to discuss an aspect of science for the Anthropocene, and broader action for the Anthropocene, that is increasingly pressing for society as a whole: the role of democracy in effective governance of these issues, and the flipside of the current crisis of democratic government as against an ascendant authoritarianism the world over. Drawing on her excellent book ‘Too Hot to Handle: The Democratic Challenge of Climate Change’ (Bristol UP: 2020), we discuss the need for not just more, but better, democracy if we are to meet the challenge of climate emergency, focusing specifically on t...
2022-07-031h 08Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 4 - Coral reefs with Nick Graham (Part 2 of 2)(Pt 2 of 2) In Episode 4 we welcome Professor Nick Graham to discuss the crucial ecosystem of coral reefs. Over the last 30 years, coral reefs have emerged as one of the front lines of ecosystems beset by the changing planet that characterises the Anthropocene. And while catastrophic coral bleaching events due to ocean warming make the headlines, these uniquely biodiverse marine environments have been confronting a variety of anthropogenic pressures for some time. Drawing on Nick’s 25 years of highly-cited, cutting-edge research, the discussion investigates: the stark challenges to existing science of coral reefs; the need for new approaches that are pra...
2022-05-1325 minScience for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 4 - Coral reefs with Nick Graham (Part 1 of 2)In Episode 4 we welcome Professor Nick Graham to discuss the crucial ecosystem of coral reefs. Over the last 30 years, coral reefs have emerged as one of the front lines of ecosystems beset by the changing planet that characterises the Anthropocene. And while catastrophic coral bleaching events due to ocean warming make the headlines, these uniquely biodiverse marine environments have been confronting a variety of anthropogenic pressures for some time. Drawing on Nick’s 25 years of highly-cited, cutting-edge research, the discussion investigates: the stark challenges to existing science of coral reefs; the need for new approaches that are pragmatic, systemic and...
2022-05-0856 minScience for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 3 - Phosphorus, with Phil Haygarth, Paul Withers, Kirsty Forber and Shane RothwellIn Episode 3 we welcome our first guests on the podcast from the natural sciences – Professor Phil Haygarth, Professor Paul Withers, Dr Kirsty Forber and Dr Shane Rothwell – to discuss the key challenge for our food system of phosphorus. Phosphorus is an essential building block of life, and so an essential nutrient in our food and agriculture. In the last 80 years or so, massive growth of mineral phosphorus in farming has been key to the boom in food production. But too much phosphorus flowing through the rural and natural environment also has profoundly negative environmental impacts, not least for water, on wh...
2022-03-111h 07Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 2 - 'Planetary Social Thought', with Nigel Clark and Bronislaw SzerszynskiOur first guests on the podcast are Lancaster University professors Nigel Clark and Bronislaw Szerszynski, discussing their fantastic new book 'Planetary Social Thought - The Anthropocene Challenge to the Social Sciences' (Polity, 2021). In a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion, we cover: the 'socialization' of the Anthropocene and the converse movement of 'geologizing' social science; a new basis to bring natural and social science together and into new conversation; how taking the planet seriously rewrites familiar narratives of (Western) modernity, colonization and, indeed, contemporary decolonization; the basis of the capacity of human reinvention in the planet's multiplicity and its capacity for...
2022-01-261h 11
Science for the Anthropocene - Learning to FlyEpisode 1 - Introduction to 'Science for the Anthropocene'Welcome to 'Learning to Fly' - the podcast for 'Science for the Anthropocene' (S4A) at Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) at Lancaster University, UK.
In this first episode, David Tyfield, Professor of Sustainable Transitions and Political Economy and leader of the S4A research theme at LEC, sets the scene for future episodes, by offering an initial overview to the idea of a 'Science for the Anthropocene', and the argument for its importance and urgency. This hinges on the imperative of a turn towards 'phronesis', or situated practical wisdom, as the paramount goal and form of skilful j...
2021-12-191h 02
Rising with the TideBuilding a Better Scientific Method & Mobility Issues in China with David Tyfield - LUXR Episode 0.6* Ep 6 of our archived LUXR Series *
Your hosts Jonny and Skander talk with David Tyfield, Reader at the University of Lancaster. David's research focuses on critically analysing knowledge-based systems as well as mobility and climate issues in China and around the globe. We discuss the complex role of China in the climate crisis, science's obessession with techne/episteme and how to build a better scientific method.
Let us know your thoughts at risingwiththetide@gmail.com as well as what you'd like us to talk about next!
2020-08-281h 26
Thinking AllowedChina todayWill China rule the world? Laurie Taylor talks to Yuen Yuen Ang, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, and author of a study which explores China's unusual route out of poverty. They're joined by David Tyfield, Co-Director of the Centre for Mobilities Research at Lancaster University, and author of new book examining the prospects for an alternative global power regime.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
2018-06-2028 min
Beyond Ears and EyesLucid DreamingEver had one of those flying dreams? Want to do it again - at will? Then lucid dreaming is for you. David Tyfield teaches people how to lucid dream. Shemane and Liezl find out more...
2018-01-1648 min