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BBC Inside Science

Lockdown lessons for climate change and the carbon neutral Cumbrian coal mine

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.51.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

While the world is dealing with the coronavirus outbreak, those who are concerned about the environment are saying that an arguably bigger crisis is being side-lined. Climate change, or climate breakdown, is still happening. Just like the Covid-19 pandemic, it will be the poorest people in the poorest countries that pay the highest price for the breakdown in our climate. But can we learn something from the current lockdown that can be applied to climate change? Can it provide the impetus for us to do things differently. Writer and environmentalist George Monbiot thinks so. He recently wrote that coronavirus is ‘a wake-up call for a complacent civilisation’, and he discusses with Marnie Chesterton whether there is some hope that can be taken from the current crisis. Last year, it was announced that a new coal mine in Cumbria was given backing in parliament. The Woodhouse colliery would be Britain’s first new deep coal mine in 30 years, bringing much needed jobs to the community. The colliery, along the coast from Whitehaven, is planned to be producing coking coal for the steel industry. Cumbria County Council claimed the mine, which aims to process 2.5m tonnes of coking coal a year, would be carbon neutral, as locally produced coal, negates the need to ship it in from as far afield as the US, Canada, Russia and Colombia. It’s perhaps unsurprising that climate campaigners think this is a huge step back and that the mine is unnecessary and incompatible with UK climate ambitions and that it will hold back the development of low-carbon steelmaking. BBC Inside Science sent reporter Geoff Marsh to explore the story that highlights the difficulties of balancing carbon costs and accounting, with employment and self-sufficiency. Presenter - Marnie Chesterton Producer - Fiona Roberts

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan

0:05.2

I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy

0:10.2

podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really.

0:13.0

Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,

0:18.0

making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.

0:22.0

But you know I also know that comedy is really

0:24.4

subjective and everyone has different tastes so we've got a huge range of comedy on offer

0:29.6

from satire to silly shocking to soothing profound to just general pratting about. So if you

0:36.2

fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.

0:41.6

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:45.0

Hello there, this is the podcast of Inside Science from BBC Radio 4.

0:49.0

First broadcast on the 16th of April 2020.

0:53.0

For the millions of species in this country that aren't human,

0:57.0

life continues as normal.

0:59.0

Which means for those of us who can get outside,

1:02.0

we have the chance to marvel at Spring's wildlife sex

1:05.2

disco going on around us as the birds, bees and badgers all hunt for a mate.

1:10.3

Here's the glorious noises from producer Fee's garden.

1:14.0

Hang on to that comforting sound because we in our position as the Apex Predator have certain responsibilities

1:28.8

and this week we're going to look at some of the other stuff we've forgotten to worry about since the lockdown changed our lives.

1:35.9

While we're all dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, an arguably bigger crisis is being sidelined.

1:42.2

Climate change or climate breakdown is

...

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