Episodes
Sunday Jun 11, 2017
Regenerative Agriculture
Sunday Jun 11, 2017
Sunday Jun 11, 2017
In this epispode, Professor Myanna Dellinger interviews David R. Montgomery, a MacArthur Fellow and professor of geomorphology at the University of Washington. He is author of The Hidden Half of Nature and Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, as well as other award-winning popular science books. He lives in Seattle with his wife, author and biologist Anne Biklé, and Loki, their guide-dog dropout.
What if there was a relatively simple, cost-effective way to help feed the world, reduce pollution, pull carbon from the atmosphere, protect biodiversity, and make farmers money to boot? Through fieldwork spanning three decades and six continents, renowned geologist David R. Montgomery discovers that the answer is right beneath our feet. GROWING A REVOLUTION: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life [W. W. Norton & Company; May 9, 2017] is a spellbinding journey to uncover the blueprint for a regenerative agriculture that builds soil health and leaves both farmers and the environment better off. It is a book that Kirkus Reviews states is, “An optimistic look at how regenerate farming can revive the world’s soil, increasing food production, boosting cost effectiveness, and slowing climate change.”
In his quest to reveal the solutions beneath our feet, Montgomery introduces us to innovative farmers who practice regenerative agriculture. Montgomery shows that restoring fertility to the land is not an either-or choice between modern technology and time-tested traditions. Ending with a call for action beyond the fields, Growing a Revolution is an inspiring addition to the bookshelf of anyone seriously concerned with the future of food and farming, our relationship with nature, and the fate of civilization and the planet.
Wednesday May 17, 2017
The Logic and Controversies of Geoengineering
Wednesday May 17, 2017
Wednesday May 17, 2017
In this podcast hosted by Professor Myanna Dellinger, Dr. Stefan Schäfer presents his view on the pros and cons of the ever-controversial, but, in his view, also promising aspects of climate geoengineering.
Dr. Stefan Schäfer is a political scientist interested in the history, philosophy and politics of science and technology. He leads a research group on climate engineering at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam and is Oxford Martin Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, University of Oxford. He was a guest researcher at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) from 2009-2012 and a fellow of the Robert Bosch Foundation’s Global Governance Futures program in 2014-2015. He is a contributing author to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, lead author of the European Transdisciplinary Assessment of Climate Engineering (EuTRACE) report, and chair of the Steering Committee of the Climate Engineering Conference (CEC) series. He holds a doctorate in political science from Freie Universität Berlin. See his profile at http://www.iass-potsdam.de/en/people/stefan-schaefer.
Wednesday Jan 25, 2017
Transitioning Energy
Wednesday Jan 25, 2017
Wednesday Jan 25, 2017
In this podcast, Myanna Dellinger interviews Craig Morris on his experience and views regarding how the German energy sector transitioned from fossil fuels to modern energy sources through grass-roots movements. The lessons learned have been adopted by other countries and maybe there is hope of using this model for an energy transition in more stubborn countries such as the United States.
Craig Morris (@PPchef) is currently a Senior Fellow at the IASS. Coauthored with Arne Jungjohann, his book Energy Democracy is the first history of Germany’s energy transition, the Energiewende. He has served as technical editor of IRENA’s REmap and of Greenpeace’s Energy (R)evolution. In 2008, he cofounded Berlin’s PV Magazine; in 2010, Renewables International. In 2012, he became lead author of EnergyTransition.de. In 2014, he won the International Association of Energy Economists’ prize for energy journalism.
Monday Jan 16, 2017
Climate Geoengineering and Its Governance
Monday Jan 16, 2017
Monday Jan 16, 2017
What can we do today to work toward adequate governance of climate engineering down the road? In this podcast, Myanna Dellinger discusses with Matthias Honegger why governance urgently requires a global conversation open to all, which can help unearth concerns, risks and opportunities associated with various new ways to dealing with climate change in the context of expected future impacts from climate change itself.
After studying environmental system sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology, Matthias Honegger has been working since the beginning of 2012 on international climate policy in developing countries and on climate negotiations as a consultant for various multilateral organizations and governmental bodies with the consulting firm Perspectives Climate Change (CV). During this time, he has actively followed and contributed to research on climate engineering and its governance and reflected about the climate engineering governance implications of the Paris Agreement (Harvard Viewpoints article). At the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that took place November 2016 in Marrakech, Matthias has participated in what may well be the first serious conversations on this important issue area on the margins of international climate negotiations – including with negotiators representing countries from the global south and north. He also spoke in Marrakech on the need for a global conversation in a panel discussion (video). In his position at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), Matthias Honegger is undertaking social science research on questions regarding governance (mobilizing and regulating negative emissions technologies), and risks in context of direct interventions in the climate system and the growing threat from climate change.
Thursday Jan 15, 2015
Climate Geoengineering
Thursday Jan 15, 2015
Thursday Jan 15, 2015
Climate change... should it be solved by governments at various scales or by technological innovation? Or is there a third path involving both options? In this podcast, Dr. Wil Burns discusses how climate geoengineering might find some valuable use as a temporary and limited method of alleviating the dire and urgent effects of climate change until a long-term solution to the underlying problem can be found. Dr. Burns takes a pragmatic scientific approach to the somewhat controversial issue of geoengineering, but does not advocate it as an end-all, be-all solution. After explaining the currently most promising geoengineering techniques, Dr. Burns discusses with Associate Professor of Law Myanna Dellinger the known socio-legal, political and corporate ramifications of looking to technology instead of supranational legal agreements for solutions to climate change.