Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Today starts a week-long global climate strike, leading into the UN Climate Action Summit,

which starts on Monday. Thousands of events are planned in more than 120 countries.

The mass walkout of students and young people began in Australia and was the largest the country has yet seen.

The Economist is taking this moment to examine the

processes that force climate change, and how they're built into the very foundations of the global

economy and of geopolitics. We will take a look at the history of climate research and the

strengths and weaknesses of the computer models that predict what's next. We'll examine how simply adapting to the change as it comes presents its own risks,

and we'll look at how climate-minded artists are adding their voices to those of scientists and politicians. The 20th century was a time of massive transformation for humanity.

The internal combustion engine radically

changed transportation. Electric lights swept back the darkness. Explosives and fertilizers became

cheap and plentiful, sparking revolutions in mining, warfare and farming. The raw materials

for products from forklifts to plastic forks became commodities.

In no previous century had the global population or GDP doubled. In the 20th century,

humanity's number nearly doubled twice. GDP, four times. The billions of tons of fossil fuels

that powered this growth in human capabilities, this

staggering wealth generation, now threaten, if not the planet itself, and at least most of its

people.

Yet the concerns, the scientific debates, and the outright misinformation that characterize

climate conversations today aren't new.

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