Saving the World From Bad Ideas

🔍 Episode Summary:

In this powerhouse episode, Mark Lynas is joined by long-time friend and environmental journalist George Monbiot for a brutally honest conversation on where we are — and how we fight back. Together they challenge the idea that environmental progress is automatic or guaranteed, and instead delve into the deep political, economic, and social forces that shape our chances for a better future.

Monbiot argues that unless we confront power, capitalism, and the failure of incrementalism, we’re simply sleepwalking into authoritarianism and ecological collapse. From colonialism to neoliberalism, from fascism to the failures of the left, this is a sweeping conversation on what went wrong — and how we can make things right, through a positive politics of belonging.

This one pulls no punches.

🧠 Topics Discussed:

• 🏛️ Why environmentalism fails without confronting power

• 🛑 The myth of inevitable progress — and how it can be reversed

• ⚡ Technology is not enough: the limits of "techno-fix" thinking

• 💰 A crash course in the real origins of capitalism

• 📉 Why incremental change is a losing strategy

• 📢 What neoliberalism really is — and how it disempowers citizens

• 🧱 Private sufficiency, public luxury: a new vision for the future

• 🧠 Why the left keeps losing — and what must change

• 🎯 Popper’s paradox, politics of belonging, and how to counter fascism

• 📲 How social media is supercharging authoritarianism

• 😤 Can we still win? Yes — but only if we act boldly
  

👨‍🏫 Guest Bio:

George Monbiot is a columnist for The Guardian, environmental activist, and author of several books including Regenesis, Out of the Wreckage, and The Invisible Doctrine (with Peter Hutchison). He’s one of the most influential and outspoken voices on the British left — and he’s spent four decades fighting for ecological justice, democratic reform, and systemic change.

📚 Recommended Reading & Resources:

• The Invisible Doctrine – George Monbiot & Peter Hutchison

• Regenesis – George Monbiot

• Out of the Wreckage – George Monbiot

• The Road to Serfdom – Friedrich Hayek

• Land for the Many – Report edited by George Monbiot

💬 Quote Highlights:

“Progress is not inevitable. And if you don’t confront power, you lose — every time.” — George Monbiot

“Capitalism didn’t start with commerce. It started with slavery and extraction.” — George Monbiot

“If we fail to offer a positive politics of belonging, the fascists will offer a negative one — and people will choose it.” — George Monbiot

“Incrementalism is not a theory of change. It’s an excuse for failure.” — George Monbiot

“We need a politics of private sufficiency, public luxury.” — George Monbiot

🌐 About WePlanet:

WePlanet is a global citizen and science movement advocating for bold, science-based solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. We fight bad ideas with better ones. Learn more at weplanet.org.

📥 Join the Conversation:

💬 Got thoughts on this episode? Email us: [email protected] 📬 Subscribe for future episodes: weplanet.org/podcast

🔍 Episode Summary:

In this searing and deeply compelling conversation, Mark Lynas speaks with Vijaya Ramachandran, economist and Director for Energy and Development at the Breakthrough Institute, to unpack what she calls one of the worst “bad ideas” shaping today’s climate discourse: the blanket opposition to fossil fuel development in the Global South.

From indoor air pollution to energy inequality, and from misguided climate justice campaigns to blatant geopolitical hypocrisy, Vijaya takes aim at the idea that development must be sacrificed for the climate. She explains why poor countries need more energy — including some fossil fuels — in order to fight poverty, save lives, and build resilience to climate shocks.

If you think climate justice means banning gas in Africa, you might want to listen to this first.

🧠 Topics Discussed:

• 🔥 Why LPG (liquified petroleum gas) is clean cooking, not dirty energy

• 🫁 3.8 million deaths a year from household air pollution

• 🌲 How clean fossil fuels can save forests and reduce emissions

• 🧮 The carbon math: Germany’s LNG expansion vs all of Africa’s LPG

• 🤯 The World Bank’s fossil fuel financing ban — who it really affects

• 💸 Hypocrisy in action: Norway, Germany, and the United States

• ⚖️ Why energy inequality is a moral and not just technical issue

• 🧱 Fossil fuels for fertiliser, cement, steel, and climate adaptation

• 🚫 The limits of leapfrogging: why renewables alone aren’t enough

• 🧬 What real climate justice would look like for developing nations

• 🌍 Could “green colonialism” break the Paris climate consensus?

👩‍🏫 Guest Bio:

Vijaya Ramachandran is Director for Energy and Development at the Breakthrough Institute and an economist who has written for Nature, Foreign Policy, and The Economist. Her research focuses on energy access, development, and the geopolitics of climate finance. She's a fierce advocate for energy equity and pragmatic climate solutions rooted in the needs of the world’s poorest.

📚 Recommended Reading & Resources:

• Foreign Policy – The Green Colonialism Essay by Vijaya Ramachandran

• How the West Is Pushing Africa Away from Gas – Breakthrough Institute

• Why LPG Is Good for the Climate – WePlanet article by Mark Lynas

• Our World in Data – Energy Access

• IEA Clean Cooking Investment Tracker

• Energy for Growth Hub

• World Bank report on Indoor Air Pollution
  

💬 Quote Highlights:

“LPG saves lives. It’s better for women, better for children, and even better for the climate when you look at the alternatives.” — Vijaya Ramachandran

“You can’t cook with wind and solar. That’s the reality for hundreds of millions of people.” — Vijaya Ramachandran

“The World Bank’s fossil fuel financing ban only hurts the poorest — and it won’t solve climate change.” — Mark Lynas

“Climate justice has become what Western NGOs want, not what poor people actually need.” — Vijaya Ramachandran

🌐 About WePlanet:WePlanet is a global citizen and science movement dedicated to bold, science-based solutions for climate and development. We believe in energy abundance, food security, and global prosperity — without environmental collapse. Learn more at weplanet.org.

📥 Join the Conversation:

💬 Email feedback: [email protected] 📬 Sign up for updates: weplanet.org/podcast

🔍 Episode Summary:

In this thought-provoking episode, Mark Lynas is joined by science writer and The Planet Remade author Oliver Morton for a candid conversation about geoengineering — the controversial set of technologies that could help us cool the planet.

Oliver argues that not talking about solar geoengineering might itself be a bad idea, especially as climate change accelerates and overshoot scenarios become more likely. They explore how stratospheric aerosols, inspired by volcanic eruptions, could reflect sunlight and reduce warming, and why such solutions are currently taboo in many environmental circles.

The episode tackles moral hazard, global equity, the politics of climate action, and why global South leadership is essential for legitimate discussion. Mark even finds himself inching toward changing his own mind — again.

🧠 Topics Discussed:

• 🌍 Why the conversation around geoengineering has barely moved since The Planet Remade (2015)

• 🌡️ Solar vs. carbon dioxide removal (CDR) geoengineering

• 🌋 Volcanoes, aerosols, and the science behind reflecting sunlight

• 🤐 The dangers of not talking about solar geoengineering

• 🎭 Climate discourse, moral hazard, and the “technofix” taboo

• ⚖️ Why global South voices are critical to the legitimacy of the debate

• 🔥 Whether the current warming justifies reconsidering “unthinkable” options

• 💣 Nuclear weapons, termination shock, and existential risk

• 🎵 Meatloaf, billiards, and asteroid jokes (yes, really)

🧑‍🔬 Guest Bio: Oliver Morton is a senior editor at The Economist, former science writer for Nature, and author of The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World. He has an asteroid named after him — and no, it's not headed toward Earth.

📚 Recommended Reading

• The Planet Remade – Oliver Morton

• Paul Crutzen’s 2006 paper on stratospheric aerosols

• IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C

• Reports by the Degrees Initiative

📝 Quote Highlights:“If we have to wait until everyone agrees on how to act in order to address climate change, we are not going to address climate change.” — Oliver Morton

“People say the world is burning but refuse to even consider options that might stop it from burning. That’s a hard position to defend.” — Mark Lynas

🌐 About WePlanet:WePlanet is a citizen and science movement that challenges conventional thinking to defend evidence-based solutions to environmental challenges. Learn more at ⁠weplanet.org⁠.

📥 Join the Conversation:💬 Got thoughts on geoengineering?

Email us: ⁠[email protected]⁠📬 Sign up for updates: weplanet.org/podcast

🔍 Episode Summary:

In this energising and data-packed conversation, Mark Lynas sits down with Hannah Ritchie, lead researcher at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World, to confront one of the most pervasive bad ideas out there: that everything is getting worse.

Hannah argues that, while environmental challenges are real and urgent, the story of human progress is just as important — and overwhelmingly positive. From reductions in child mortality and extreme poverty to progress on clean energy and air pollution, Hannah lays out the evidence that things are getting better, and explains why excessive doomerism and moralising can get in the way of real climate action.

They tackle controversial topics like degrowth, depopulation, meat consumption, nuclear and renewables, and more — all with the goal of defending optimism grounded in facts.

🧠 Topics Discussed:

• 📊 Why most people are wrong about the state of the world

• 👶 Huge progress in child and maternal mortality

• 🌍 The truth about extreme poverty and hunger

• 🌳 Have we passed peak deforestation?

• 🌬️ Air pollution: the global success story no one talks about

• 📰 Media-driven negativity bias and noble cause corruption

• 🐄 How reducing beef and lamb consumption could halve farmland use

• ⚡ Why energy is solvable — but food is the real moonshot

• 🧫 Lab-grown meat, innovation, and pragmatic environmentalism

• 💥 Why degrowth and depopulation arguments fall flat

• 💡 Rebranding eco-modernism and the power of “urgent optimism”
  

👩‍🔬 Guest Bio: Hannah Ritchie is Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher at Our World in Data and author of the best-selling book Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet. Her work focuses on using data to understand and solve the world’s biggest problems — from climate change to poverty and health. Hannah is also the co-host of the podcast Solving for Climate, where she interviews innovators working on climate solutions.

📚 Recommended Reading & Resources:

• Not the End of the World – Hannah Ritchie

• Our World in Data

• Factfulness – Hans Rosling

• Solving for Climate podcast

• The Magic Washing Machine – Hans Rosling (YouTube)

• Enlightenment Now – Steven Pinker

💬 Quote Highlights:

“The world can be terrible, getting better, and still need to improve — all at the same time.” — Hannah Ritchie

“Climate change is a catastrophic risk, but not an existential one. And that distinction matters.” — Hannah Ritchie

“We don't just need anger — we need a vision for a better future to work toward.” — Hannah Ritchie

“We can’t solve problems by moralising people into submission. We need good, scalable alternatives.” — Mark Lynas

🌐 About WePlanet:WePlanet is a global citizen and science movement defending the science-based solutions we need to save the world — from clean energy and sustainable food to prosperity for all. Learn more at weplanet.org.

📥 Join the Conversation:💬 Feedback? Thoughts? Email us: [email protected]

📬 Get alerts when new episodes drop: weplanet.org/podcast

🔍 Episode Summary:

In the inaugural episode of Saving the World from Bad Ideas, Mark Lynas is joined by renowned psychologist and best-selling author Steven Pinker to challenge the pervasive myth that the world is in terminal decline.

Steven makes the case for progress as a measurable, empirical reality, highlighting how improvements in health, literacy, poverty, and safety have transformed human life — even if we rarely hear about them. Together, they explore the psychological biases behind pessimism, the rise of reactionary politics, the dangers of nuclear weapons, and the pitfalls of modern progressive movements.

From Enlightenment ideals to eco-modernism, it's a wide-ranging conversation on how to make the world better — rationally.

🧠 Topics Discussed:

• 📈 What progress really means — and how we can measure it

• 📰 Why the media distorts our sense of reality

• ⚙️ The Enlightenment roots of knowledge-driven human improvement

• 🧨 Why nuclear weapons remain an existential threat

• 🧠 How to rebuild a rational, empirical environmental movement

• 🧵 The rise of wokeism and internal collapse of progressive institutions

• 🇺🇸 Trumpism, authoritarianism, and global democratic backsliding

TRAILER

What if some of the biggest obstacles to saving the planet aren’t what you think? In Saving the World from Bad Ideas, Mark Lynas—once a self-proclaimed eco-activist turned science advocate—is here to question the ideas that shape environmental debates.

Are GMOs really dangerous? Is nuclear power a threat or a solution? Will billions die from climate change? With sharp discussions and guests like Steven Pinker, Hannah Ritchie, and George Monbiot, this podcast digs into the myths, misconceptions, and inconvenient truths that too often go unchallenged.

If you're ready to rethink everything you thought you knew about saving the planet, hit subscribe.