Understand

Across three episodes, author and mental health academic Nathan Filer explores neurodivergence: what it means, how children live with it, and how adults navigate its impact in work, relationships and everyday life.

Episode three turns to adulthood, asking what it means to receive a diagnosis of autism or ADHD later in life, and why increasing numbers of people are now seeking assessment. Nathan hears from clinicians managing huge waiting lists, alongside adults reflecting on how a diagnosis has shaped their understanding of themselves and their lives.

Through lived experience and expert insight, the programme asks what it would take for more neurodivergent adults to be better understood, better supported and better able to flourish.

Featuring contributions from Pete Wharmby, occuptional therapist Charlie Hobbs, Ian Ensum and Sarah Zohadi from the Bristol Autism Spectrum Service, peer mentor Ben, neurodiversity coach Emma Wee, Matthew Punter; founder of Eden, and Annie and Patricia from Project Art Works in Hastings.

Writer and presenter: Nathan Filer

Across three episodes, author and mental health academic Nathan Filer explores neurodivergence: what it means, how children live with it, and how adults navigate its impact in work, relationships and everyday life.

Episode two asks what it means to grow up neurodivergent in a school system under strain. For some children, school can be a place of learning, friendship and support. For others, it can become overwhelming: a world of sensory overload, social confusion, anxiety, burnout and absence.

Through the experiences of children, parents, educators and clinicians, the programme considers what happens when a child is labelled difficult, disruptive or unable to cope – and what changes when adults begin to see distress differently.

From autism and ADHD to school avoidance, SEND provision, sensory integration and the pressure on families and teachers, it asks how education might better meet children where they are.

Featuring contributions from Matthew Punter, Labeebah Islaam, SENDcos Georgina Smith and Stewart Dudgeon, clinical psychologist Naomi Fisher and Occupational Therapist Charlie Hobbs.

Writer and presenter: Nathan Filer

Author and mental health academic Nathan Filer explores neurodivergence: what it means, how children live with it, and how adults navigate its impact in work, relationships and everyday life.

Episode one begins with the language of difference: as terms like neurodivergent and neurotypical have moved from activist and specialist spaces into everyday life, they have brought comfort, identity and community, but also confusion.

Through lived experience and expert insight, the programme travels from autism and ADHD to self-diagnosis, TikTok, rejection sensitivity and the limits of labels.

It asks not only what we call one another, but how we listen, understand and care.

Featuring contributions from Labeebah Islaam, academic psychologist Lucy Foulkes, clinical psychologist Naomi Fisher and Alex Partridge, author of Why Does Everybody Hate Me? Living and Loving with Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria.

Writer and presenter: Nathan Filer

Nathan Filer explores the complex and shifting terrain of neurodiversity, and what it means to be different. From neurodivergence in childhood, to navigating adulthood.

Facing climate fatigue and denial, a backlash against green policy, and increasingly urgent warnings from scientists, the green movement is shifting into a new era.

Two environmentally-minded politicians spell out their opposing visions for where the movement should go next.

Zack Polanski is the leader of the Green Party, preaching a message of ‘eco-populism’. John Gummer is a Conservative Lord and former head of the Climate Change Committee; he thinks the most powerful tool to make change is the free market.

What is the future of the green movement?

Presenter: Justin Rowlatt

Archive:

Just Stop Oil is “hanging up the hi vis” after three years of throwing soup at paintings, interrupting theatre performances, and blocking roads. It’s 2025. They’ve been racking up arrests - and opponents - and now, the UK government has passed a string of new laws cracking down on disruptive protest.

They say they’ve achieved their aims - a ban on new oil and gas licenses - but were they policed to extinction? With their hardcore campaigning for the climate, did these activists prompt a change in law that made all green activism harder?

Presenter: Justin Rowlatt

Archive:

There are competing protests on either side of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. It’s 2023, on the eve of the final shutdown of the country's last three remaining nuclear power plants.

On one side, anti-nuclear campaigners and politicians celebrate their victory. This is a new, clean, dawn for the German power grid, they say.

On the other side of the gate, a small but vocal group of pro-nuclear greens condemn what they believe is a grave mistake. And as other countries pledge to increase their nuclear energy capacities, this group is playing the long game. They believe they may have lost the battle here in Germany, but they will win the war.

How did the green-on-green struggle over the German energy system go nuclear?

Presenter: Justin Rowlatt

Archive:

Mountain gorillas are thriving in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. The formerly ‘critically endangered’ population has blossomed, hailed around the world as a conservation success story.

But to save the gorillas, humans were shut out of the forest. An indigenous community who for centuries called this area their ancestral homeland was evicted - they say, illegally. And now they are fighting to go back.

 This struggle over land, resources, and who has a voice in conservation will go all the way to Uganda's highest court.

Presenter: Justin Rowlatt

“Helicopter” - an activist yells. Then gun-wielding agents in balaclavas abseil down, onto the Greenpeace ship, to tow it to Russia.

This is the story of a campaign against oil drilling in the arctic that takes a dangerous turn. And the debate it sparks within the movement - should the organisers have better anticipated the risks of their campaign? Who is responsible for activists’ safety?

Presenter: Justin Rowlatt

Archive:

Hundreds of world leaders are gathered in Copenhagen, 2009, with high hopes of securing a historic climate deal. And the Chinese premier has gone missing. US President Obama rushes through the corridors of the conference centre - on a mission to gatecrash China’s secret rendez-vous with its allies.

This is just the final day of a two-week conference that has felt more like a thriller movie than an exercise in diplomacy.

How did one global conference expose the faultlines in international climate collaboration that are still seen today?

Presenter: Justin Rowlatt