The Land & Climate Podcast

Last September, power cuts and water shortages triggered civil unrest in Madagascar, leading to the dissolution of its government. In recent months, Iran’s water crisis has led to public demonstrations and even a warning from President Masoud Pezeshkian that Tehran could be evacuated. Protests over access to food and water are intensifying globally. Dagomar Degroot returns to the podcast to discuss the role of climate change in regime breakdown. He and Alasdair discuss historical examples of societal collapse influenced by climatic conditions, the effects of the “Little Ice Age” on droughts and harvests, and how the Global North might be less resilient than many realise. Dr. Dagomar Degroot is Associate Professor of Environmental History at Georgetown University, an expert on climate change, space exploration and existential risk. His forthcoming book, “Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean: How the Solar System Shapes Human History – and May Help Save Our Planet,” will be published by Penguin in February. Listen to Alasdair and Dagomar’s discussion about the book here. Further reading: 'After Ruining a Treasured Water Resource, Iran Is Drying Up', Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360, December 2025.'Climate crisis or a warning from God? Iranians desperate for answers as water dries up', Patrick Wintour, The Guardian, November 2025. 'Madagascar’s president dissolves government amid youth-led protests', The Guardian, September 2025. Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse, Luke Kemp, 2025. 'Climate, peace, and conflict—past and present: Bridging insights from historical sciences and contemporary research', Sam White et al., Ambio, 2025.Megadrought and Collapse: From Early Agriculture to Angkor, Harvey Weiss (ed.), 2017. Questioning collapse : human resilience, ecological vulnerability, and the aftermath of empire, Patricia A. McAnany & Norman Yoffee (eds.), 2010. Send us a textClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

The Arctic is heating four times faster than the global average, with scientists predicting the Arctic Ocean will be completely free of ice in summer by the early 2030s. This rapid melting presents an existential threat to Arctic infrastructure and ecosystems, as well as opening new claims on strategically valuable resources. As temperatures rise in the Arctic, so do geopolitical tensions. This week, Alasdair is joined by Mia Bennett, co-author with Klaus Dodds of “Unfrozen: The Fight for The Future of The Arctic,” published by Yale University Press. Mia explains the environmental consequences of melting permafrost, the roles multilateral organisations and Indigenous communities have within policymaking, and the growing militarisation of the region.  Mia Bennett is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Washington, and a British Academy Visiting Fellow at UCL’s Centre for Outer Space Studies. Her book "Unfrozen” and long-running blog “Cryopolitics” examine Arctic developments – including the science of climate breakdown, national and Indigenous politics, and the emergence of new markets. “Unfrozen: The Fight for The Future of The Arctic,” is available to purchase from Yale University Press here.Further reading: 'Have we reached peak Arctic Circle?' Mia Bennett, Cryopolitics, 2025 'The cryosphere is nearing irreversible tipping points – and the world is not prepared', Letizia Tedesco, Josephine Z. Rapp and Petra Heil, Land and Climate Review, 2025 Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait, Bathsheba Demuth, WW Norton & Company, 2019  The Paradox of Svalbard: Climate Change and Globalisation in the Arctic, Zdenka Sokolíčková, Pluto Books, 2023 'Russia’s espionage war in the Arctic', Ben Taub, The New Yorker, 2024 Seven poems from Dark Traffic, Joan Naviyuk Kane , 2021 Send us a textClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

This week, Bertie Harrison-Broninski speaks with Professor Annette Kehnel, Chair of Medieval History at the University of Mannheim. Kehnel gives us a potted history of sustainability and argues that sustainable practices have existed throughout history, yet our modern collective memory is influenced by ideas of resource exploitation introduced in the 18th and 19th centuries.  Annette Kehnel is currently a visiting fellow at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. She is the author of The Green Ages: Sustainable Practices, winner of the 2021 NDR Book Prize. Its English translation by Geshe Ipsen has been shortlisted for the 2025 Schlegel-Tieck Prize. Further reading:  The Green Ages: Medieval Innovations in Sustainability, Annette Kehnel, Profile Books Die sieben Todsünden: Menschheitswissen für das Zeitalter der Krise (The Seven Deadly Sins: Human Knowledge for the Age of Crisis), Annette Kehnel, Rowohlt Governing the commons : the evolution of institutions for collective action, Elinor Ostrom, Cambridge University Press Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Naomi Oreskes, Bloomsbury Managing the Lake Constance Fisheries, ca. 1350-1800, Michael Zeheter, Berghahn Send us a textClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has claimed that nuclear fusion can be harnessed within the next five years, and that its application to the electricity grid is expected within eight to fifteen years. Fusion research has been ongoing for over a century, with experiments beginning in the 1950s, but there has recently been a surge in private investment. Nearly $10 billion has been raised in the last five years, primarily from private funders in the USA.Fusion expert Matthew Hole tells Bertie Harrison-Broninski that many of these new companies are likely to go bankrupt, and that fusion power is unlikely to be operational in time to contribute to net zero targets. They discuss the different forms of fuel for fusion power, the world’s largest fusion project in France, and the high-risk, high-reward nature of fusion investment.Matthew Hole is a professor at the Mathematical Sciences Institute at the Australian National University and a leading authority on plasma fusion physics. In 2005, he founded the Australian ITER Forum and currently serves as co-chair of the International Fusion Research Council of the International Atomic Energy Agency.Further reading: Billions in private cash is blooding into fusion power. Will it pay off? Professor Matthew Hole, 2025, The Conversation US energy chief tells BBC nuclear fusion will soon power the world, Justin Rowlatt, 2025, BBCHelion Energy starts construction on nuclear fusion plant to power Microsoft data centers, Stephen Nellis, 2025 ReutersWhat’s fueling the commercial fusion hype? Victor Gilinsky, 2024, Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsIter, the nuclear-fusion project proving that multilateral collaboration still works, Simon Bouvier, 2025, MonocleWhat’s the difference between fusion and fission? A nuclear physicist explains, Professor Matthew Hole, 2024, The ConversationSend us a textClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.

Controversial efforts at space tourism, such as by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, have reignited old debates about the purpose of space exploration. What relevance does the world beyond our planet have to anyone apart from billionaires and their super-rich clients? Without defending the growing commercialisation of the space sector, environmental historian Professor Dagomar Degroot offers some answers. In conversation with Alasdair, he examines the solar system's influence on humanity - and humanity's influence on the solar system. They explore how humans have survived past climate shifts, and how human understanding of climate and space have always been connected. Dagomar Degroot is Associate Professor of Environmental History at Georgetown University and a leading scholar on the Little Ice Age. His first book, “The Frigid Golden Age,” was published in 2018. His new work, “Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean,” is published by Penguin and available to pre-order here.  He also has a podcast telling the story of climate's influence on humanity, The Climate Chronicles.Further reading: Little Ice Age Lessons, Dagomar Degroot, Aeon, 2025 The Frigid Golden Age, Dagomar Degroot, Cambridge University Press, 2018 The History of Climate and Society, Dagomar Degroot, IOPScience, 2022 Climate Change in Human History: Prehistory to the Present, Benjamin Lieberman and Elizabeth Gordon, 2022, Bloomsbury The Story of CO₂ Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made our World, Peter Brannen, 2025, Harper Collins Colonial Cataclysms: Climate, Landscape, and Memory in Mexico’s Little Ice Age, Bradley Skipyk, 2020, University of Arizona Press Send us a textClick here for our website to read all our most recent Land and Climate Review features and pieces.