Food, The Environment & Richard Flanagan

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2021

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lab meat and robot bees: how veganism and tech can solve the climate crisis. Anne McElvoy considers how food impacts on the environment with guests Anthony Warner, Cassandra Coburn, and Alasdair Cochrane. Plus Man Booker Prize winning novelist Richard Flanagan on his new novel, The Living Sea of Waking Dreams – about a dying planet and a dying mother.

Anthony Warner is author of Ending Hunger: The Quest To Feed The World Without Destroying It.

Cassandra Coburn is the author of Enough: How Your Food Choices Will Save The Planet.

New Generation Thinker Alasdair Cochrane, from the University of Sheffield, is the author of Should Animals Have Political Rights?

Novelist Richard Flanagan's latest book, The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, recalls the devasting fires in Australia and Tasmania, and against this dying world depicts a dying woman and her three children in a magical realist fable. In 2014 he won the Man Booker Prize for The Narrow Road To The Deep North, which considered the experiences of a Far East prisoner of war during the construction of the Burma Railway.

You can find more conversations in a playlist on the Free Thinking website called Green Thinking, which includes a discussion of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring - a consideration of the soil, dams, and deserts - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2

Producer: Emma Wallace

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:23.3	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.
0:28.8	Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.
0:32.0	Hello, I'm Anne McHellvoy.
0:33.8	Coming up in today's episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast, Australia's best-known
0:38.3	writer Richard Flanagan explores the conundrums of End of Life in a powerful new novel. And how can we eat
0:45.1	our fill without causing environmental indigestion for poor old planet Earth? I'll be back
0:51.1	just after this short message.
0:59.6	With the BBC Sounds app, you can find some of your favourite shows with ease.
1:04.9	For example, you can tap the search button at the bottom right and type in Classical Fix.
1:11.6	This will take you straight to the podcast where we aim to open up the incredible world of classical music to everyone.
1:15.9	Featuring some famous faces, including the comedian James Acaster.
1:18.9	Listen to it, it feels like all the grimes coming off you.
1:20.7	The musician, Nadine Shah.
1:22.7	Right now I'm on some adventure.
1:24.1	And many more.
1:28.8	Download the BBC Sounds app to start listening to Classical Fix and many other podcasts. A dying planet and the place of humankind on it and how changing our relationship
1:36.1	with the food we eat might mitigate damage to the world around us are our interconnected themes
1:41.8	today. Book of Prize-winning Australian novelist Richard Flanagan's latest novel,
1:46.9	The Living Sea of Waking Dreams,
1:49.3	recalls the devastating fires,
1:51.3	which swept across large parts of Australia last year.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.