How to fight the climate “polycrisis” – with Mike Berners-Lee

The Bunker

Podmasters

News, Politics, Society & Culture, Government

4.6 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The climate crisis is spiraling, Trump’s back in the White House, and the headlines keep getting worse. It’s easy to feel powerless. But what if the first step toward saving the planet is something you learned in primary school? In this episode of The Bunker, Zing Tsjeng sits down with Mike Berners-Lee, author of A Climate of Truth, who argues that radical honesty about what’s happening, who’s responsible, and what must change might just be our most powerful tool against the looming polycrisis. We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to https://Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit. Buy A Climate of Truth: Why We Need It and How To Get It through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund The Bunker by earning us a small commission for every sale. https://bookshop.org/’s fees help support independent bookshops too. www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Andrew Harrison. Producer: Liam Tait. Audio editor: Tom Taylor. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Want to listen to our podcast without interruptions from advertising?
0:04.5	Well, sign up to back us on Patreon for a smooth, ad-free listening experience.
0:09.8	Follow the link in the show notes to find out how.
0:20.7	Hello and welcome back to The Bunker, your daily dose of news and politics explainers.
0:25.8	I'm Zing Singh.
0:26.9	Winter sea ice in the Arctic is at record lows.
0:30.1	The biggest forest fire in South Korea is raging on record.
0:33.5	Plus, new research saying the average person will be 40% poorer if the earth heats by five degrees.
0:39.6	These are all just headlines from the last week.
0:42.2	That's right, as if you don't have enough to worry about what with Trump in the White House,
0:46.9	the climate crisis is hitting new highs and, you know, not the good kind where you get to take a trophy home at the end.
0:53.4	So what can regular ordinary Joe Shmos like me and you do about it? It's where you get to take a trophy home at the end. So what can regular ordinary
0:55.0	Joe Shmos like me and you do about it? It's easy to get discouraged, sure, but what if the power
1:00.4	is actually in our hands? And it's all got to do with something that we get told all the time when we're
1:05.4	kids. Don't lie. That is the message offered in a climate of truth, why we need it and how to get it,
1:12.1	a new book from Mike Berners-Lee, a professor at Lancaster University who researches
1:16.6	carbon metrics and sustainable food systems. So he knows a bit about what it would take for humanity
1:21.6	to get out of this almighty mess we've gotten ourselves in. He's also the brother of the renowned
1:26.9	computer scientist, Sir Tim Berners-Lee the brother of the renowned computer scientist, Sir Tim
1:28.7	Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web. So he's from a talented family that's used to seeing
1:34.4	the very big picture. Thanks for joining me in the bunker, Mike. Pleasure to be here.
1:39.3	So there's a really sobering graph in your book that shows that despite COVID-19 and financial
	...

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