‘Plastic has long been the fossil fuel industry’s ‘plan B’’ says Luke Haverhals, co-founder of NFW, a start-up dedicated to creating materials with plants, not oil. Plastic has a stranglehold over our lives, but it’s not good for us, and it also keeps the fossil fuel industry in business. Luke is proposing a solution to this - creating four different materials that can be used to make anything from clothes to shoes to furniture, that can return to the earth at the end of their life. Is this the solution to the plastic crisis?

Guest

Dr Luke Haverhals, CEO of Natural Fiber Welding

Co-hosts

Hannah Ritchie, Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher, Our World In Data @_HannahRitchie

Rob Stewart, Co-founder and Director of Sustainability, Koba

Subscribe to Hannah's Substack 'Sustainability by numbers'

Want to get in touch? Email [email protected]

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Data centres are not the most glamorous topic of discussion but they are everywhere, powering our modern, digital economy. But they can also power swimming pools, breweries and laundries, as Mark Bjornsgaard tells Hannah and Rob on this episode. 97% of the electricity that goes into a computer comes out as heat. It’s an incredibly inefficient process, and more often than not this heat isn’t used. So, rather than building these data centres in the middle of nowhere, Mark’s company Deep Green is taking computing power to where heat is needed, offering a precious resource to communities across the UK. Could this be scaled up for use across the world?

Guest

Mark Bjornsgaard, Founder of Deep Green 

Co-hosts

Hannah Ritchie, Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher, Our World In Data @_HannahRitchie

Rob Stewart, Co-founder and Director of Sustainability, Koba

Subscribe to Hannah's Substack 'Sustainability by numbers'

Want to get in touch? Email [email protected]

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Despite the inexorable growth of Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT or Midjourney in the past couple of years, painfully little is known - or at least publicised - about their carbon impact. However, Dr Sasha Luccioni is on a mission to change that. Hannah and Rob talk to her about how she’s trying to maximise the benefits of AI, while minimising its hidden climate costs. Why is AI development such a black box? And could AI be part of the solution to the climate crisis?

Guest

Sasha Luccioni, AI and Climate Lead, Hugging Face

Co-hosts

Hannah Ritchie, Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher, Our World In Data @_HannahRitchie

Rob Stewart, Co-founder and Director of Sustainability, Koba

Visit Sasha's website and subscribe to Hannah's Substack 'Sustainability by numbers'

Want to get in touch? Email [email protected]

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How do we buy ourselves some time to save our planet? Humans are responsible for the immense damage inflicted on our planet since the Industrial Revolution, but now we have the chance to do some good and repair the climate. Hannah and Rob discuss the power of human ingenuity and ambition with Founder of the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge University, Professor Sir David King. His work finding ambitious solutions to the climate crisis can sound almost unreal. Making clouds brighter to reflect more sunlight? Refreezing the arctic? Using whale poo to regenerate the ocean’s biodiversity to store more carbon? He joins Hannah and Rob explore these solutions and more in this week’s episode.

Guest

Professor Sir David King Founder of the Centre for Climate Repair @Sir_David_King 

Co-hosts

Hannah Ritchie, Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher, Our World In Data

Rob Stewart, Co-founder and Director of Sustainability, Koba

Subscribe to Hannah's Substack 'Sustainability by numbers'

Want to get in touch? Email [email protected]

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‘It’s obvious that oil is on the decline’, says energy strategist Kingsmill Bond. He joins Hannah and Rob to talk about the energy transition and he’s got an optimistic take: he says that we reached peak fossil fuel demand 10 years ago, and give it another five and oil will be a thing of the past. Kingsmill tells Hannah and Rob how we can move past a narrative that’s been peddled by the fossil fuel bosses telling us that renewables are too expensive, and why learning from the tech shifts of the past will be key to predicting the future of green energy.

Guest

Kingsmill Bond, Energy Strategist at RMI, kingsmillbond.com 

Co-hosts

Hannah Ritchie, Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher, Our World In Data

Rob Stewart, Co-founder and Director of Sustainability, Koba

Subscribe to Kingsmill's Substack 'Renewable Revolution' and to Hannah's Substack 'Sustainability by numbers'

Want to get in touch? Email [email protected]

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Hannah Ritchie and Rob Stewart are fascinated by solutions to the climate crisis and the innovators, entrepreneurs and scientists behind them. They want to shine the spotlight on the people working tirelessly to change the narrative on the climate crisis to show that there's brilliant stuff going on out there, and that all isn't lost.

Subscribe to the feed now to listen to the first two episodes when they drop next Thursday 7th November.

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