Welcome to the Green Alliance podcast. My name is Sean Spears and in this episode, I'm joined by the writer Margaret Heffernan.

I think the world for blindness to climate change over the last 30 years is absolutely the greatest, grossest example I can cite.

In the podcast, Margaret provides insight into what epidemics can teach us about tackling climate change.

I think the narrative that people never change their minds is a deeply repressive narrative.

It's very clear that people have changed their minds and are changing

their minds around climate change. It's very clear that people's children are having a tremendous

impact on how their parents think. Margaret also speaks about how at times a great uncertainty

we should have confidence in our own capacity to adapt,

improvise and create better futures.

In uncertainty lies freedom and choice and options.

And what we need to do is learn how to use that freedom well and legitimately and imaginatively and creatively. I hope you enjoy the next 30

minutes listening to our conversation. I'm delighted we've got with us Margaret Heffernan,

author of a fascinating new book, Uncharted, How to Map the Future Together.

I thought one of the most striking things, just reading the book at the beginning,

is just how quickly you get into the whole question of epidemics.

You say on page five that unique or rare external events may render what was formerly predictable, suddenly

unforeseeable, making historical data irrelevant or useless. This is frequently true of epidemics.

And there's a lot in the book about pandemics. There's a lot particularly about the AIDS crisis.

Reflecting on that, what do you think we can learn from the past in how we recover from the current pandemic?

Sure. Well, there is absolutely a lot about epidemics in the book, and this is not because I had some

genius insight. It's really because I think epidemics are a great example of uncertainty in the sense that we know epidemics are generally certain.

They do happen, they keep happening.

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