The Best of Radical with Amol Rajan

**Gabriel Gatehouse** (0:00)
Hello, it's Gabriel Gatehouse here. You might know me from other BBC podcasts, like Ukraine Cast and The Coming Storm, but I'm delighted to say that next week, I'll be joining you on Radical.
I've got a question. Is it hot where you are?
I'm in London, and it's hot. It's very hot, and it has been for a while now.
With all the caveats about distinguishing between the weather and the climate, we've moved beyond arguments about whether this global heating is caused by human activity. So what do we do? Well, the obvious answer is get on with it, right? Reduce those carbon emissions fast in ways that would probably involve some pretty radical changes to the global economy. The trouble is we keep having this discussion, and it's not really happening. So next week on Radical, we're gonna be talking about a different idea. It's called geoengineering, deliberate large-scale interventions in the Earth's climate system designed to fight human-induced climate change. Already, there are scientists who are exploring the viability of vacuuming up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and burying it. They're working on schemes to alter our oceans and plants to make them absorb more carbon dioxide. They're trying to artificially thicken the Arctic sea ice to make it more reflective. But could we, should we, go more radical still? What about putting mirrors into space to bounce sunlight away from the Earth? Or simulating the effects of a massive volcanic eruption by spraying the atmosphere with tiny particles to dim the Sun for a period of, say, a hundred years? Now personally, instinctively, I think this sounds like a Bond villain's fever dream.
But what if I'm wrong? Because this is exactly what some scientists, not the majority, but some, are proposing. And research is already underway. Professor David Keith is one of the world's leading experts on and proponents of geoengineering. And he is, I think it's fair to say, pretty out there on this subject. So let's explore geoengineering in the way that we do on this podcast, Radical, with an open mind and a critical lens. There will be plenty to dig into. What are the environmental, the ethical and geopolitical risks? Who gets to decide when and how this technology is deployed? Who could benefit the most and who the least? And is it just an excuse for us to keep burning fossil fuels? As always, we want your Radical questions for our Q&A episode with Professor David Keith. So, send us a message or a voice note on WhatsApp, plus 44 330 123 9480 Or the email is radical at bbc.co.uk.
That's next week, but now on with this week's episode.

**Amol Rajan** (3:16)
Hello, it's, well, you know who it is, it's Amol here. Welcome to Radical is what I want to say. These are, as I think you know by now, conversations about the deep, local, national and global trends and forces changing our world and offering you a safe space for some Radical ideas for the future. If you heard last week's episode with Sophie Pender and indeed the Q&A on Monday, you may know that this is my last episode of Radical. Just before we give you a little selection of some of my favorite bits, there's too many to choose from, but we've had a go. I just want to say two things.
One is thank you, a really heartfelt and sincere thank you to you, above all, because you've been extraordinarily generous with your time, and your ears, and your minds. We've had incredible numbers, frankly, on this podcast, incredible engagement, and to be stopped all around the country, as I have been, by people coming up to me, crossing platforms, as happened once or twice in Devon, literally running across things, as happened in Salford, to say, I love that episode of Radical you did, I think it's amazing, it's my favourite podcast, to bombard me with the messages that you have. Honestly, it means the world to me. So thank you so much to you for your time. Thank you to the 50 plus guests that we've had on this podcast, who've given us a huge amount of their time, and their brains, and their amazing radical ideas. And thank you too, if I may say, to the wonderful heroes, particularly the producers and studio engineers on the other side of the glass, who have actually delivered Radical. I just talk into a microphone, they turn it into a very successful podcast. I'm really, really, really grateful, and I always will be, and I'll always treasure the time that we've had together on this podcast. And I also just want to say that I think the mission is incredibly important, and if anything, more important than ever. We had two ideas, two big things we wanted to do with this podcast. One is shift the emphasis in our conversation from events, daily events, which are cursory and fleeting and perishable, to the underlying trends, the underlying forces that are shaping this crazy, bewildering era in human history. That, to me, is where the real story of humanity is. That sense of how things are changing over time is what I've tried to address. And I've also tried to provide a safe space for the radical ideas of our magnificent guests. And if you go back and listen to these episodes, you'll find lots and lots of radical ideas to address the biggest challenges of our time. And that is something I'm incredibly proud of. So for this final episode, I wanted to revisit some of my favourite conversations. There really are too many, but I think this gives you a great selection and a flavour of what we've tried to do on those two fronts. And we're gonna start with this one. It's Matt Clifford. He is a hugely successful entrepreneur and investor, and also someone who's been a very effective and widely praised, I think I can say, advisor to governments of both left and right in this country.