Podcasts
90 episodes that go with the ESS lessons, chosen from what is actually said in them. Each one says what you will get from it and links to its lessons. Most are under half an hour.
How Sir David Attenborough inspired me to protect our planet
What Sir David Attenborough actually did for conservation, and what changed because of it.
What in the World 10 min2026
Do climate protests ever work?
Where the green movement came from: a hippie boat to Alaska, the mind bomb, then Greta at the UN.
The Climate Question 26 min2026
Sir David Attenborough
First-hand accounts of what Attenborough actually changed, useful for the row you place him in.
The Documentary Podcast 23 min2026
100 years on Earth: celebrating David Attenborough’s birthday
How Attenborough's films changed from pure wildlife to explicit environmental warnings, and who pushed that change.
Science Weekly 21 min2026
Who's Up For A Circular Economy
Take-make-waste explained, then the design changes that close the loop, with mattresses, cans and clothes.
Stuff You Should Know 54 min2025
How H&M Group is exploring circular business models in The Fashion ReModel
Real numbers on resale at H&M: 0.6% of revenue, lower margins, and why circular models are hard to scale.
The Circular Economy Show Podcast 23 min2025
Evolution of the environmental movement
Four named UK activists, why each started, and the photograph that made people think planet rather than place.
Ask the Geographer 30 min2025
A short history of environmental protest
Where Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Green Party came from, and what their campaigns actually changed.
Costing the Earth 28 min2020
What is the circular economy? 3/3
The founder of the foundation behind the butterfly diagram explains what circular design and leasing actually mean.
The Circular Economy Show Podcast 21 min2019
What is the circular economy? 2/3
The butterfly diagram explained by the person whose foundation drew it, biological and technical cycles side by side.
The Circular Economy Show Podcast 19 min2019
What is the circular economy? 1/3
The take-make-waste line turned into a circle, with plastic, cars and food as worked examples.
The Circular Economy Show Podcast 24 min2019
Forty years on from nuclear disaster
Chernobyl as an environmental disaster that changed energy policy across Europe, assessed forty years on.
BBC Inside Science 26 min2026
What did 10 years of the Paris Agreement actually achieve?
Evidence on whether one international agreement actually changed emissions, finance and forests.
Zero: The Climate Race 31 min2025
Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
The full Fukushima story: the first hours inside the plant, then what happened to Japan afterwards.
Short History Of... 49 min2023
Do climate conferences make a difference?
What an international climate agreement actually commits countries to, and what happens when one walks away.
The Inquiry 23 min2021
Why is Europe the fastest-warming continent?
Hear the ice-albedo feedback used to explain why Europe is the fastest-warming continent.
BBC Inside Science 26 min2026
The controversy over cod fishing in Canada
The numbers and voices behind the Newfoundland cod collapse, and what losing 30,000 jobs overnight meant.
The Conversation Weekly 26 min2024
foundation.3.1Sustainability, its pillars and collapsewater.3.2Collapse, limits and warming waterswater.3.5.hlRecovery, UNCLOS and EthicsGoal 1: No poverty
Who is actually responsible for ending poverty: the state, businesses, your neighbours or you.
Project 17 26 min2021
How the circular economy helps us stay within planetary boundaries
The three circular economy principles explained through plastics, food waste and cotton farming, with figures for each.
The Circular Economy Show Podcast 21 min2024
Clever ways to cut waste from nappies to games and desks
Three real cases of the circular economy at work: reusable nappies, energy games and plastic school desks.
The Documentary Podcast 23 min2026
Inside IKEA's strategy: building a resilient circular business
Real figures on how far reuse has actually got, and what still stops people buying secondhand.
The Circular Economy Show Podcast 26 min2026
Is circular fashion the answer to clothes waste?
A clear explanation of linear versus circular, then the real limits: cost, energy, technology, consumer time.
What in the World 14 min2024
How is IKEA embracing circular design?
A furniture giant explains what extending product life actually requires, and where it cannot act alone.
The Circular Economy Show Podcast 22 min2022
Can doughnuts save the planet?
Kate Raworth explains the doughnut herself, then Amsterdam projects show where the model breaks down.
People Fixing The World 25 min2021
Circular Economy Greatest Hits: Seven of the best examples
Reusable tins and modular headphones show the butterfly diagram working, and where it still falls short.
The Circular Economy Show Podcast 35 min2020
foundation.3.5The doughnut and the circular economyland.2.3.hlAlternative, Regenerative and High-tech FarmingThe Builders
What beavers actually do to a river, and how one family kept 7.5 acres unburnt in a wildfire.
Radiolab 30 min2026
What’s being done to protect the Amazon rainforest?
Hear why the Amazon could switch from storing carbon to releasing it, and what 15 to 20 years of emissions means.
What in the World 12 min2025
Reversing Extinction? Sea Otters and Butterflies Hold Clues
Otters eat crabs, crabs eat grazers, and eelgrass recovers: a trophic cascade explained by the scientists who measured it.
Bay Curious 25 min2025
The 'forever chemicals' lurking in our water and clothes
Where PFAS enter drinking water, from chemical plants to airport foam to your bathroom sink.
What in the World 13 min2026
ecology.2.4Pollutants, Bioaccumulation and Biomagnificationwater.4.1Water Pollution and Water Qualitywater.4.3.hlPollutants, HABs and HypoxiaWhy mangrove forests are healing after decades of human destruction
A case where stopping the cutting was enough: mangroves regrew by themselves once laws changed.
What in the World 9 min2026
Why this tiny organism is essential for the health of the planet
What plankton actually is, why it feeds everything in the sea, and whether you could eat it.
Instant Genius 32 min2026
How does carbon dioxide shape our world?
Hear how carbon leaves the atmosphere as limestone, and why we refill it faster than the sinks work.
The Climate Question 25 min2025
Is this climate change or just crazy weather?
A forecaster gives you the clearest working definition of weather against climate, and the 30-year rule behind it.
The Climate Question 26 min2026
From the archive: ‘The treeline is out of control’: how the climate crisis is turning the Arctic green
A Norwegian parallel to your Alaskan treeline case study, with rates, causes and a methane feedback.
The Audio Long Read 37 min2025
The anatomy of a super El Niño
How the trade winds, the Walker circulation and a warm Pacific combine to flood Brazil and dry out Australia.
The Conversation Weekly 22 min2026
"Super" El Niños and climate change
A clear account of how El Niño builds, which regions flood or dry out, and the global temperature spike.
The Climate Question 23 min2026
What Is El Niño? And why it could cause chaos this year
The trade winds, the warm water and the weather it changes, explained in six minutes with examples.
What in the World 10 min2026
Will rabbits become super predators?
Foxes released for sport in 1870, and 101 cane toads that became 200 million.
CrowdScience 26 min2026
Super seagrass
A marine habitat being rebuilt seed by seed, with the funding, science and local effort it takes.
People Fixing The World 23 min2026
How can we feed 11 billion people?
What the Green Revolution actually achieved, and the lab trying to make photosynthesis itself more efficient.
The Inquiry 24 min2019
Why it’s not too late to reverse Earth’s extinction crisis
Hear why the current extinction rate is measured in centuries, not the millions of years of the Big Five.
Instant Genius 27 min2026
How can rewilding help combat climate change?
Four researchers define rewilding, its three types, and why some projects fail without local support.
The Inquiry 24 min2026
Episode 9 - The Future of Nature
Hard numbers on vertebrate, insect and fish decline, plus how one loss drags down a whole food chain.
Jon Richardson and the Futurenauts 53 min2020
Why it’s boom time for beavers in England
Why beavers are back in English rivers, what they do to a river, and who objected.
Science Weekly 15 min2025
On the trail with the hunters who believe shooting big game can save Africa’s wildlife
A conservation model that works on paper but sits badly with the people living inside it.
The Audio Long Read 29 min2026
Elephant conservation in Botswana
Botswana has a third of Africa's elephants and cannot afford them: the arguments for and against hunting them.
The Documentary Podcast 26 min2025
Warrior elephant guardians
An African elephant sanctuary owned by the community, and the social and economic reasons they give for protecting it.
The Documentary Podcast 28 min2020
Why rewilding success stories make us hopeful for the future
A rewilding scientist defines the term and names the three processes any project tries to restore.
Instant Genius 24 min2021
How gangs are taking advantage of South Africa’s water crisis
Textbook economic scarcity: the water exists, but the storage and transport systems have broken down.
What in the World 10 min2026
Fighting the megadrought
Fog catchment and reverse osmosis desalination explained on site, with yields, costs and the brine problem.
People Fixing The World 25 min2023
Are we running out of water?
Why desalination is expensive, who ends up buying tanker water, and how a city can be made into a sponge.
The Inquiry 23 min2021
Why is Cape Town Running Out of Water?
Four reasons one city nearly ran dry: drought, dams, demand and a decision not to spend.
The Inquiry 24 min2018
Can we cope with droughts?
Metering, leak detection and a neighbour-comparison app stopped Cape Town's taps running dry.
The Climate Question 26 min2026
How do we prepare for a future water shortage?
Metering, leaking pipes, desalination membranes and drinking recycled wastewater, costed and compared.
The Briefing Room 29 min2026
The secrets of greywater
How greywater recycling works at three scales: one Brazilian household, a German hotel system, a US state law.
People Fixing The World 24 min2026
The Great Leaky Loo Scandal
Low-flush toilets were meant to save water. In the UK they now waste about 400 million litres a day.
Costing the Earth 28 min2020
Why is China building the world’s biggest dam?
Two transboundary disputes compared: the Brahmaputra and the Nile, with the law that barely binds them.
The Inquiry 23 min2025
The Nile: A big dam problem
One river, three governments: hear how a dam built for electricity became a water security argument.
What in the World 12 min2023
Does it take 10,000 litres of water to make a pair of jeans?
What a water footprint actually measures, and why textiles are the classic case of hidden water use.
More or Less 10 min2023
Making It Rain: How Cloud Seeding Could Help Combat Future Droughts
Cloud seeding is one of the eleven supply strategies: here is how it works and why nobody can measure it.
Bold Names 20 min2022
Can we control the weather?
How rainmaking actually works, how little water it adds, and why water managers still pay for it.
The Inquiry 26 min2022
How can Chennai’s water crisis be solved?
Costs of making drinkable seawater: energy, hot brine, lost fish catches and possibly a weaker monsoon.
The Inquiry 24 min2019
How Much Plastic Can We Recycle?
Where ocean plastic comes from, and the microplastics found in a third of 500 Channel fish.
Discovery 27 min2018
The Joy of Soil
Soil is half empty space, and worms, fungi and bacteria are the ones that built it.
Rare Earth 52 min2026
Ground Shift: Scale and modern farming models
Two real farms to classify: 4,500 acres of commodity corn against intensive organic beds on a roof.
The Compass 27 min2019
Feeding the world’s growing population
The nitrogen arithmetic behind your food: recycling everything gives only half of what eight billion people need.
Instant Genius 19 min2024
Episode 2 - The Future of Food
Why the Green Revolution's extra yield only worked with extra fertiliser, water and pesticide.
Jon Richardson and the Futurenauts 60 min2020
Dwarf wheat
Where the Green Revolution actually came from, and the pollution and water costs it left behind.
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy 10 min2019
Is lab-grown meat the future of food?
An Oxford researcher explains why replacing a cow's metabolism with machinery may not cut emissions.
BBC Inside Science 28 min2024
land.2.3.hlAlternative, Regenerative and High-tech FarmingI eat three steaks a day - how does beef affect climate change?
Food miles matter less than you think: transport is only 5% of the emissions from what you eat.
What in the World 12 min2024
land.2.4.hlDiets, Wild Harvesting and Food DistributionCold Chain
Why your supermarket stocks fruit all year, and why a food-exporting country can still have stunted children.
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy 10 min2017
land.2.4.hlDiets, Wild Harvesting and Food DistributionWill there be just 6 grandchildren for every 100 South Koreans?
Total fertility rate explained with real numbers: 0.78 per woman, and what that does over three generations.
More or Less 10 min2023
China’s collapsing population
China tried cash, weddings and painless birth to raise births. None of it moved the numbers.
The Documentary Podcast 27 min2026
South Korea's birth rate is rising, but the population is still shrinking
A second named example for natalist policy, and a clear account of why paying people to have children rarely works.
The Conversation Weekly 28 min2026
Why we are having fewer children than we want
Evidence on which population policies actually change birth rates, and which just move the timing.
What in the World 10 min2025
Is the UN underestimating the global fall in fertility?
Hear a UN demographer explain why the projections come with three futures, not one.
More or Less 9 min2025
Borders and Belonging: is Japan turning into a migration state?
Hear why Japan's payments for births failed and what it is now doing with migrant worker visas instead.
The Conversation Weekly 41 min2024
Why don’t South Koreans want to have kids?
A pro-natalist policy that failed: cash, housing and IVF, and what South Korean women say they actually need.
What in the World 11 min2024
Can Europe reverse its falling fertility rates?
Named pro-natalist schemes from Hungary, Italy, France and Germany, with evidence on which ones changed birth rates.
The Inquiry 25 min2024
Are more adult nappies sold in Japan than baby ones?
Named Japanese policies to raise births, and why experts doubt that cash payments will work.
More or Less 9 min2023
What Japan can teach us
China ran the world's biggest anti-natalist policy, then reversed it. Hear why, and what Japan tried instead.
Rethink 43 min2022
How Do You Make People Have Babies?
Named pro-natalist policies from Singapore, Sweden and France, with evidence on which ones worked.
The Inquiry 23 min2018
Will the population of Nigeria be larger than Europe’s?
Population momentum in one sentence, plus why demographers disagree about Nigeria in 2080.
More or Less 9 min2022
population.1.4.hlPopulation growthHow come sea levels are rising faster in some places than others?
Residents in the Philippines describe moving their homes inland as the tide reaches the doorstep.
CrowdScience 31 min2026
population.1.5.hlPopulation pressureIs the world ready for more climate migration?
Sudden floods or slow drought: two ways climate forces people to move, with Tuvalu as the test case.
The Inquiry 24 min2025
population.1.5.hlPopulation pressureWill rising sea levels wipe countries off the map?
The Tuvalu minister explains slow-onset loss: saltwater in the soil, drought, and people already leaving for New Zealand.
The Inquiry 24 min2022
population.1.5.hlPopulation pressureShould we have smaller families to save the planet?
A modeller shows why halving the 2100 population would cut global emissions by only seven per cent.
More or Less 10 min2018
population.1.5.hlPopulation pressureCan you feed a city from its rooftops?
A Bangkok rooftop farm that grows food, stores monsoon rain and cools the building below by three degrees.
The Food Chain 31 min2023
Sponge cities that fight flooding
Singapore and Wuhan treat the city as an ecosystem: green roofs, wetland parks and a hospital that drinks its own rain.
People Fixing The World 25 min2022
The farmers moving their fields indoors
Strawberries grown in shipping containers between a housing estate and a railway line outside Paris.
People Fixing The World 24 min2020
