Physical Attraction

In the last episode, we briefly introduced "climate change doomers" and some of their misleading claims. In this episode, I talk about despair, and why we cannot give in to it.

We're going there. In this episode, I discuss why civilization is not going to imminently collapse due to climate change, explain why doomism is a new form of denialism, and debunk some of its most misleading claims.

A new episode released from behind the Patreon paywall. This episode, we'll review and discuss some of the issues raised by Tim Wu's The Attention Merchants, a book that details the history of the advertising industry.

In this episode, we will continue our analysis of Direct Air Capture and conclude the series on negative emissions - crucial component of decarbonisation, or a techno-utopian distraction from the real problems we face? [Don't expect an actual answer]

Direct Air Capture - machines that suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Could this be the solution to a scaleable negative emissions industry? We'll discuss the pros and cons of the technology in this episode.

Hi all! This is a slightly special bonus episode. Some years ago I had plans for another series "Black Mirror IRL", which was going to be a series of episodes looking into the technologies mentioned and featured in the Netflix Series Black Mirror. Is anyone working on these technologies in real life? What would their potential social implications be if they were developed? How scientifically feasible would it actually be to develop something like this? The plan would be to explore one technology alongside each episode of the show. However, time has passed and I've moved onto other projects, and now I have nowhere near enough time to finish this series alongside everything else, so I only ever got around to recording a single, pilot episode for that putative series, which has been sitting on my hard drive for ages. Rather than let it go to waste - as it could be years if ever before I get back around to this project again - I am releasing it as a bonus episode for you to enjoy. But one thing I would say is that I would really appreciate your feedback on this episode. Do you think the series is a good idea? Would you like to see more episodes along these lines? How do you think I could improve it? Any and all suggestions are gratefully received. Maybe someday the series as a whole will return. Thank you all as ever for your support for the show.  

What are "nature-based solutions" to climate change? Can we restore the ecosystems that we've destroyed? And how can restoring mangroves help us to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere?

"Give me a tanker full of iron, and I'll give you a new Ice Age." It might sound like something Hank Scorpio would say, but this episode will deal with the very real idea of stimulating plankton blooms to remove CO2 from the atmosphere - ocean iron fertilization.

How could grinding up rocks and sprinkling the dust over vast areas help to combat climate change? In this episode, we deal with "enhanced weathering" as a potential source of negative emissions.

Mention carbon capture, and the refrain you'll often hear is "why invent a machine that captures CO2? We already have one - it's called a tree." But is large-scale afforestation as a negative emissions solution so simple? We dig into its potential in this episode of our series on negative emissions.

N/B: Owing to a ridiculously hectic schedule until the end of the year, episodes will continue to be released on a fortnightly basis until further notice - thanks for understanding.  We hear an awful lot about carbon capture, utilisation, and storage as a technology that could help to mitigate climate change. In this episode, we review the science, the policy, existing CCS plants, and the potential for the captured carbon to be utilised. Will CCS ever materialise?

In this episode, we get into some of the specific technologies that might be called upon to deliver negative emissions at scale. Specifically, we're looking at the advantages, disadvantages, and concerns surrounding BECCS (Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage.)

In this episode, we discuss whether the promises that some new technology - like negative emissions - will come along and "solve climate change" for us are genuine, or if they have instead shaped climate policy into prevarication and procrastination.

Increasing levels of negative emissions are envisioned by models in climate-change scenarios that are compatible with the Paris Agreements. In this episode, we talk about some of the geopolitical implications for trying to deliver this, and the alternative futures that we can envision. Do "thinly-veiled techno-utopias shore up the Paris Agreement?"

Negative emissions technologies (NETs), also called carbon dioxide removal (CDR), are seen by many as an increasingly essential part of climate change mitigation. Many of the scenarios that the IPCC suggests for meeting the Paris Agreement goals suggest that we will suck billions of tonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere by the end of the century - using technology which has barely made it past the pilot project stage. In this episode, I ask: how did we get here?

The book club returns, with a two-part review and overview of anthropologist Jason Hickel's book "The Divide", about global inequality, its historical origins, and possible solutions in the future.

The book club returns, with a two-part review and overview of anthropologist Jason Hickel's book "The Divide", about global inequality, its historical origins, and possible solutions in the future.

In this episode, we discuss the ongoing battle throughout the 1930s and 1940s between those who believed in a steady-state Universe, and those who thought it was expanding - and how it took more observations to overcome these cosmological contradictions.

To close out this series of news episodes, we discuss the depressing failure of carbon capture and storage projects in Australia, as well as the far-too-slow approach to climate change adaptation across the world.

In this episode of Thermonuclear Takes, we tackle a couple of recent climate-related news stories - the "tipping point" carbon flux measurements from the Amazon rainforest, and the IEA's progress report on a global green recovery.

Updates on the Softbank Vision Fund and the sad fate of Pepper the robot.

In this news episode, I discuss recent anomalies around the muon - B-particles decaying into muons, and the muon's anomalous magnetic moment - and whether they herald the glorious dawn of a new era of physics, or are just a mistake.

In this news-y episode, I will give you some updates on how the show is progressing, share some listener emails on our cosmology series, and set up next episode's discussion of some recent results in high-energy physics.

In this episode, we cover the different kinds of universal horizon, whether the Universe has an edge, and talk about how theoretical physicists pondered how it all might've began.

At the dawn of theoretical cosmology, Einstein introduced the so-called "Cosmological Constant" into his equations to explain how the Universe could be static and unchanging in time. He would later say that it was his greatest mistake.

In this episode, we look at how Einstein's theory of general relativity gave rise to a theoretical framework for examining cosmology - the evolution of space, time, and the Universe in general - as a whole.

In 1929, Edwin Hubble published his findings. The redshifts from distant galaxies were proportional to their distance away from us. Theoretical cosmologists would pounce on them as evidence that the Universe must be expanding.

Everything we have been able to infer about the Universe began in total ignorance. Many early theories about how the Universe was structured were wildly incorrect - but astronomers were building up the toolkits that would later allow us to understand.

When you're trying to narrate the history of the entire Universe, where do you begin? I decided to start in a radio studio in London in March 1949, when the term "Big Bang" was first coined, in the first on our series on cosmology. 

Arguments surrounding climate change have become subtler. Outright denial is gradually shifting to rhetoric that supports delaying urgent action. In this review of a paper by Steinberger, Lamb et al, I run down the new "discourses of climate delay".

As the climate change debate has advanced, the arguments surrounding it have become more subtle. Outright denial of the climate problem is rare - so rhetoric has shifted to delaying urgent action. In this review of a paper by Steinberger, Lamb et al, I run down the new "discourses of climate delay"

Why should we listen to scientists? Well, because they're right a lot of the time. But also because - ideally - the institutions of science embody values that everyone can agree are good in a system for working out what's true.

How can machine learning and artificial intelligence help us in the fight against climate change? I explore literally dozens of ideas for possible applications of ML algorithms in this episode.

I interviewed David Gerard, author of the cryptocurrency blog and book of the same name "Attack of the 50ft Blockchain", as well as a new book "Libra Shrugged" about Facebook's attempt to develop cryptocurrencies. We talked about Bitcoin, its flaws, its origins, and its future.

I have generally held back on talking about bitcoin - because I'm super opinionated and it's one topic that generates a lot of heated discussions - but I finally let it all go in this one, lengthy rant episode. Think of it as therapy... and if you disagree, get in touch.

In The Coal Question, Jevons - alongside realising that we needed a transition to renewable energy 150 years ago - posed the efficiency paradox. Using energy more efficiently motivates you to use more energy. Can energy efficiency "rebound" and backfire like this in real systems? That's the question we explore in this episode.

In this episode of our series on energy efficiency, we are going to talk about industrial applications - how we can improve the way that high-energy industries and difficult-to-decarbonise sectors use energy.

It's a smorgasboard of climate news as global emissions rebound, slippery definitions of Net Zero abound, the Green Homes Grant collapses, and there's controversy over a Cumbrian coal mine.

In the second part of our series on energy efficiency and its role in combatting climate change, we talk about how buildings can be made more energy efficient... and some of the factors that prevent this from happening. Thanks to Podcorn for sponsoring this episode. To find out how you can find new sponsors for your podcast, head to podcorn.com/podcasters.

Sigh. Yeah I did a thing about the Gamestop, meme stocks, financial asset bubbles, and so on, if only so that these opinions don't have to rattle around in my head taking up space.

In this episode, we discuss the vital role of energy efficiency in reducing carbon emissions, and the potential to reduce energy consumption in transportation. Thanks to Podcorn for sponsoring this episode. To find out how you can find new sponsors for your podcast, head to podcorn.com/podcasters.

This week, we have a guest on the show - Rodrigo Aguilera. Specifically, we're talking to him about his book "The Glass Half-Empty: Debunking the Myth of Progress in the 21st Century". We shouldn't be happy with a narrow and limited definition of "progress" when we have the capacity to achieve so much more. But if we want to see things like the elimination of poverty, the application of human ingenuity and compassion and rationality and empathy towards solving the problems that exist in the world - this must begin with an accurate assessment of where we actually are, right now; what has led to progress in the past; and how we can get further in the future.   You're about to hear the second part of the interview, where we will dig into the flaws associated with "New Optimism" in more detail, and at the end we have a discussion about how we might hope to make the glass a little bit fuller in the future.

Listeners to our series on Softbank Vision Fund will be interested - albeit perhaps not surprised - to hear that one of its major investments, Greensill Capital, which we covered in the episode "The Next Financial Crisis", has imploded dramatically. We discuss it - and a new court ruling on another Softbank darling, Uber - in this Thermonuclear Takes episode.

This week, we have a guest on the show - Rodrigo Aguilera. Rodrigo is an economist - born in Mexico, lives in London, and his writing has appeared all over the place in various forms over the years. Specifically, we're talking to him about his book "The Glass Half-Empty: Debunking the Myth of Progress in the 21st Century". Now; this may sound like a rather gloomy take to pick, but the point that he is making is essentially that we shouldn't be happy with a narrow and limited definition of "progress" when we have the capacity to achieve so much more. But, of course, if we genuinely do want to see progress: if we want to see things like the elimination of poverty, the application of human ingenuity and compassion and rationality and empathy towards solving the problems that exist in the world - if, in other words, we actually want things to get better, rather than just complacently gesturing at lines on graphs which tell us things are getting better - this must begin with an accurate assessment of where we actually are, right now; what has led to progress in the past; and how we can get further in the future. Rodrigo was incredibly generous with his time, and so I've split the resulting interview into two parts: you're about to hear the first one, where we will talk about what the "New Optimism" theory is; I hope you enjoy it.

From the discovery of graphene to the invention of Van Der Waals heterostructures, this episode explores the potential and possibilities surrounding 2D materials - and how a particular twist between layers of graphene could unlock a playground of superconductivity.

In the concluding part of this mini-series on technological implications for being human, we discuss the idea that humans will manipulate their psychology to "short-circuit" the meaning of life - and whether there's anything wrong with doing that.

In this experimental, unusual, and wildly speculative episode, we'll discuss philosophy, and the implications of the imagined techno-future for the unanswerable questions that have been with us since the dawn of consciousness.

I sat down with Professor Rebecca Willis, author of the new book Too Hot To Handle, about the democratic challenge of climate change, how politicians deal with climate issues, the Climate Assembly here in the UK, and the ten-point plan for effective climate policy.

On this episode, we conclude our series examining the work of Project Drawdown and its climate mitigation solutions, and discuss the additional benefits that arise from implementing many of them.

This episode, we have a guest on the show that I'm very excited about. Professor Steve Keen is an economist and author who has been a longstanding critic of neoclassical economics, which has included writing the bestselling Debunking Economics book and hosting the podcast of the same name, as well as developing several alternative models of the macroeconomy. In recent years, he has turned his attention to how neoclassical economics has tried to deal with the issue of climate change... and, well, the fact that his paper is called "The appallingly bad neoclassical economics of climate change" probably tells you something of how he has responded to it. I was lucky enough to detain him for quite a while, so I've split the interview into two parts. They complement each other, but they can be listened to independently, depending on what you're interested in. The second part dives deep into the critique of the neoclassical economics of climate change: specifically, how economists have consistently been overconfident in their projections of climate damages and arguably helped lead us towards weak climate policies, and how we might hope to change this in the future. I think this is an incredibly important message and subject to discuss and debate, because unfortunately this stuff has been extremely influential - to the point where one of the main culprits has the so-called Nobel Prize in Economics - so I really urge everyone to listen to that. Thank you for listening to this episode of Physical Attraction, and thank you to Steve Keen for being so generous with his time and agreeing to be interviewed. You can find Steve on Patreon at www.patreon.com/ProfSteveKeen where you will have access to a good number of podcasts and posts on economics for free, and where you can subscribe for further access to more shows. He's also on Twitter @ProfSteveKeen where you can keep up with the latest news on this work. You can find us online at physicspodcast.com. There, you'll find the episode guide on the About page, where you can find all of the episodes we've done on subjects ranging from the birth of stars to the end of the world, and the episodes in the ongoing Climate 201 series which talk about the science, economics, and policy of climate change in much, much greater depth. There you can also get in touch with me with any comments, questions or concerns you might have through the contact form, and you'll also find links to support the show on Paypal for a one-time donation or Patreon for longer-term subscriptions. Thanks very much to everyone who has done that already. Until next time then, please do - take care.  

In this episode of our Climate 201 series, we continue discussing the practical emissions-reduction solutions from Project Drawdown - talking about regenerative agriculture, managing refridgerants, and why we abandoned electric cars which were the majority of automobiles in the 1880s!