Instant Genius - How truth and honesty are key to tackling the climate crisis

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Despite decades of international climate summits, the ongoing work of various campaign groups and open letters signed by some of the world’s most prominent scientists highlighting the crucial need for action, carbon emissions, biodiversity loss and sea level rises are still going up across the globe. So, what are we getting wrong? In this episode, we speak to leading researcher and author Mike Berners-Lee about his latest book A Climate of Truth, Why We Need it and How to Get It. He argues that truth and honesty are key if we are to avert what he refers to as the climate polycrisis. Facts and data need to be reported frankly and clearly, policymakers and business leaders need to be held to higher standards of honesty and when it comes down to it, we can all make a difference by educating ourselves, questioning the information we’re presented with and, ultimately, voting with our wallets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Music just as the artist intended. Visit name, audio, Hello and welcome to Instant Genius, a bite-sized masterclass in podcast four. Every Monday and Friday you'll hear world-leading scientists and experts talking about the most fascinating ideas in science and technology today. I'm Jason Goodyear, commissioning editor and a BBC science focus. Despite decades of international climate summits, the ongoing work of various campaign groups and open letters signed by some of the world's most prominent scientists, highlighting the

crucial need for action. Carbon emissions, biodiversity loss and sea level rises are still going up across the globe. So what are we getting wrong? In this episode we speak to leading researcher and author Mike Berners-Lee about his latest book, A Climates of Truth, Why We Need It and How to Get It? He argues that truth and honesty are key if we are to avert what he refers to as the climate polycrisis. Facts and data need to be reported frankly and clearly, policy makers and business, leaders need to be held to higher standards of honesty. And when it comes down to it, we can all make a difference by educating ourselves, questioning the information we're presented with, and ultimately voting with our wallets. So welcome to the podcast. Thanks very much for joining

us. It's a pleasure to be here. So today we're talking about your latest book, The Climate of Truth, why we need it and how to get it. So let's start with that title then. So in the book, obviously, you talk a lot about this nature of truth and why that's such an important fulcrum in this discussion. So how can you sort of briefly outline that for us? Well, I've been working on the climate and agenda and the wider environmental and what I've described, perhaps we'll talk about this more later, as a polycrisis for sort of 20 years or so. And the reality is we are not getting anywhere as a species yet in dealing with it. So, you know, carbon emissions, for example, are still going up every year, not down.

And that's after 30 years of having these climate cops, these big international conferences every year to try and deal with the problem. So we're actually still accelerating into the problem. We're actually making the climate worse by a larger amount every year than we did the year before. So with all of this going on, you know, I've been working away and many others as well have been, you know, working away, trying to see what it will take for us to get on top of the problem, and nothing's working. So my work has taken me to asking deeper and deeper questions. So what are the reasons behind

the reasons behind the reasons why we're not getting anywhere? And when I do that, it's taken me to the question of honesty, because if you look at all the bad decisions that are made around climate, at the national level and at the global level, and you ask, you know, why they're the, the case, they don't boil down to poor judgment as much as actually at their roots they have flat out dishonesty. So if I'm looking for a leverage area, what would it take for us to finally start getting somewhere? It turns out to be let's just straighten out the standards of honesty in the whole system. So having said that, we kind of unfortunately now live in an era of fake news, alternative facts. So is this just out and out deceit or is it self-interest or a bit of

everything? Well, it's a bit of everything. So in the book, I outline a whole taxonomy of deceit because it's not just about lies. What I would describe as deceit is any time that any politician or any media outlet or any business says or does anything that is intended to create a false sense of reality as they see it. So it might be something written on the side of the bus or it might be just some sort of implication or it might be just misdirection of attention or it might be selective use of evidence, cherry picking evidence deliberately in order to try and get a particular outcome from a piece of analysis. You know, there's so many tools that can be used. But I would say it has become, you know, in a lot of circles, it's become actually pretty routine.

And as I was writing the book, and I'm very keen to be as unparty political as possible. But as I was writing the book, the government that we had in the UK was, you know, happened to be putting out routine dishonesty, you know, very frequently. And of course, if you look around the world now, you know, you can see that we've got enormous trouble with truth. But what I'm really saying in the book is that the nature of the challenges that we face as a species now require us to have higher standards of honesty than we've perhaps ever needed before. So right when we're seeing things going the wrong direction, actually we need to raise the bar to hide than it's ever been. And the good news is that although this is difficult, it is actually possible. So let's have a look at some of the ways we can do that then. So we've got several sort of

different prongs here. So we've got, first of all, scientific research itself, how that's reported in the media, how it's interpreted by politicians and policy makers. So that's an awful lot to unpick there. What can we say about that? Well, one of the things we need to get much sharper at is noticing when we're being given the full story and when we're not, when we're being manipulated. So I have some simple criteria in the book for how you work out whether a politician is being careful with the truth and how you work out whether you can trust the media. And there are questions like, you know, who owns them? What's their track record of truth? What's their agenda? Is their agenda to give the clearest view of reality or is their agenda to make you think a particular thing? It's actually very easy to spread misinformation. If you're a politician and you take a comprehensive,

argument like a question like whether we should have a new coal mine on the West Coast of Cumbria, for example, which is an example that I pull out in the book. The arguments are complex enough that it's pretty easy to make them sound plausible. To stick with that example for a second, you know, you can make plausible the argument that if we open up a new coal mine, other coal mines around the world will close down into an equal extent so that no more coal will end up being extracted in the world. Or you could say, you know, it's carbon neutral if you don't include the emissions from actually using the coal, which is, of course, is complete nonsense. And, you know, other kind of clear pieces of misinformation like that. But you can make them sound plausible in

10 minutes on a radio program. And it's much harder to go back and unpick the dishonesty and demonstrate that not only was it not true, but it was knowingly not true. So he worked for the BBC. And you know now that if you are found to have been groping your colleagues, that will be the end of your career. Because, you know, and especially over the last few years, we've set that standard. The public has insisted on it. We've said this is absolutely disgusting. That behaviour is completely intolerable. And anyone who engages in it, that needs to be the end of their career.

And we can have that same standard around dishonesty in politics. So obviously these days we have access to more information than we ever have done before. And has that somehow sort of paradoxically caused this problem in a way? Yeah, the reason we need higher standards of honesty than we've ever had before is twofold. The first is that the complexity of the challenges that we need to deal with are so much greater than they've ever been historically. You know, it's not just climate, but we have to look after nature and we're hemorrhaging by diversity. Meanwhile, we've got a range of pollutants that are flooding the ecosystem. Meanwhile, we've got a feed of rising population. We've got disease threats. We've got all these

things coming at us at once. And the complexity of it means we don't stand a chance unless we get the clearest view we can of the truth. And the quality of decision making that we need to have now just can't happen when we have dishonesty in the mix because it's just such a spanner in the works of the decision-making process. And the second reason is that with all the forms of information that we've got, you know, in some ways, these, you know, social media and so on and AI and all the rest of it, you know, they can enable us to see what's going on better sometimes, but much more easily, they can confuse what's going on. So it's actually harder to see what's going on, because of the extent of the media.

Yeah, and we've got this worrying trend of these sort of deep fakes now, haven't we, like, using AI for sort of nefarious purposes? Yeah. So at the moment, when you see footage of something that's going on in Ukraine or Gaza, it constitutes evidence of what might be going on on the ground. But not very many years at all from now, it won't do. And already we see footage of politicians that sort of can be, exposed as not being real, but it looks pretty good at first glance. So we're moving into that

world. And if we're going to resist this rising ease with which we can have the woolpull over our eyes, we're going to need to sharpen our critical faculties like crazy. And we're going to need to create a price for dishonesty. So just to repeat, we need to create an environment where if a person is seen to have deliberately deceived us over something, you know, I'm talking specifically about politics, media and business, then that really, we've got to remember that that tells us that person doesn't value the truth and that tells us that they are unfit for the role that they're in. So say someone listening wants to get on board with that, you know, what sort of methods can they use? Okay. So, and I wrote this book, but really because, you know,

I know so many people now who get it. We're in a polychrisis, right? We're accelerating into it. And it requires global systemic action. And in fact, there's, you know, the depth of global systemic change that we need is really quite daunting. And they see that emissions are getting higher every year instead of even beginning to go down, despite all the efforts that we've had.

And they understand that just cutting their own carbon footprint isn't going to be enough to bring down global emissions. It takes something far more than that. And it's easy to feel helpless in that situation. But I wrote this book because actually, I think if we do a really good job of identifying the actions we can take that have the highest leverage,

then we can have much more agency than most people believe they've got. And when you go through that exercise of asking, well, what can I do that has the highest leverage? The highest leverage thing you can do is to absolutely insist on the highest standards of honesty and integrity that we can get in our politics, in our media, and from our businesses. And in all those three areas, there are very simple things you can do. I mean, obviously, when it comes to politicians, there are things you can do at the ballot box. And in the way that you think about your politicians and the way that you deselect those that aren't fit for the job.

and if you find yourself with nobody fit for the job, then it's very important that you choose the least bad. But with media as well, it's important to ask really searching questions about what is my basis for thinking that this media, whether it's traditional media or social media, what is my basis for thinking that I can trust the information that comes out of it?

And if you find that it's untrustworthy, it is really important to switch, even if you like the TV guide, or even if you like, you think some of the journalism is funny or well-written, or, you know, just do not put money towards media that is deliberately misleading. Of course, the same with businesses. You know, every time we spend or invest money in any way at all, we're pushing for one kind of future or another,

and we're supporting one kind of business or another. And in my work, I run a consulting company, and we encounter every kind of greenwash that you can imagine from different parts of the business community. And it's really important to support the businesses that are honestly doing the right thing. And we do that every time we choose to buy from a company that's doing good things and doing them honestly.

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name audio creates systems that deliver exceptional sound and unforgettable listening experiences at home. Try it for yourself at a focal powered by name boutique. Visit focal powered by name.com for more information. So what can maybe the education system do to help sort of raise adults with kind of better critical thinking faculties? I think this is one of the simple things that our education. system should absolutely be sharpening up on. And, you know, it can begin right in primary schools. You could do a lot worse than just spending an hour or two with a class full of children and putting them in front of some adverts and just asking really careful questions like, you know,

so what do you think this advert is trying to make you believe? And what tools are they using for making you believe that? What are they trying to make you want and why? and what are the means that they're using for making you want those things? And then ask the question, is this in your best interests? Because we go through the world and we are exposed to all these influences all the time, can't even stand at a bus stop without being dissuaded that our lives won't be inadequate unless we get an airplane for our summer holiday and so on. And we need to have our critical faculties alert to all of that.

And schools and universities can absolutely be helping with that. It's such a critical skill for the 21st century. So how about things like numeracy? So often statistics can be manipulated to pretty much mean anything that the person doing the manipulation wants them to do. So, you know, how can we arm ourselves against that? Well, listen to more or less perhaps. It's a good education on how numbers work and how they,

what they can and can't tell you. You know, not everybody is going to have great mathematical faculties for this kind of thing, although we shall do our best to, you know, improve them as we can. So if we're not going to do the statistical analysis ourselves, all of us as individuals, we need to have good faculties for working out

whose analysis can we trust. So, you know, I give examples in the book of, this isn't statistics, but related to this economic analysis that was very clearly bogus around, you know, for example, if a politician, and this is a real example, says that we need to open up new oil and gas fields in the North Sea because otherwise UK energy prices will go through the roof. Well, if that is just not how UK energy prices work at all, and the truth of it is that the two are almost unrelated, and the person who said it, you know, a minister at the time, you must have known that that was the case. Then that tells you that you can't trust that person

ever again on anything they tell you about how the economy works or actually anything at all. So if we've got a well-founded basis for working out who to trust, then that's another way of making sure that we're not pushed around by bogus statistics. And sort of one pitfall that you mention in the book is the sort of paradox of efficiency gains. So what do you mean by that? Okay. Well, when we create an environment in which we're getting a much clearer view of reality, there are some basic principles that will become much more widely understood.

So just coming back to the climate crisis for a moment, we might ask the question, why is it that emissions are still getting higher and higher every year? When we all know companies that are taking action and countries that are taking action and plenty of individuals who are taking action. So why isn't the sum total of all that getting us anywhere? And the answer is that there are rebound effects going on at the global level where if you squeeze the carbon balloon, if you like, in one place,

it tends to pop up in another place. And people think that efficiency improvements are going to always, or some people think, but assume that efficiency improvements will always lead to a reduction in total emissions. But that's actually not the way that the dynamics work. What happens is when we get more efficient at something, is we usually do more of that thing

to a greater extent than can be justified by the efficiency improvement. So what happens is the environmental impact actually goes up, not down. And we see this right across the economy. So, for example, in ICT, the world of computing, has become millions of times more efficient than it was in the 50s when it was first starting out. As a result of that, we do literally billions of times more computing with the result that the carbon footprint of all our computing activity is going up, not down. And with AI, with the expansion of AI, we see exactly the same effect. AI has got to the point where it's, you know, it can produce useful things much more efficiently

than it used to be able to. And as a result, we're all doing so much AI that the footprint of AI is going up and up and up. And artificial intelligence is enabling parts of the economy to become more efficient. And as a result, we're doing more in those parts of the economy. And so the result is that the environmental footprint of all of that goes up, not down as well. So this rebound effect on efficiency gains is one of the most critical things for every policymaker to really have their head around. And it's surprising how few policy makers really take the rebound effects as seriously as they need to be considered. So earlier on in the discussion, you mentioned the COP summits that have been going on for several decades now. And, you know, we're still making

the same mistakes in a lot of ways. And early on in the book, you talk about breaking that habit. So, you know, how have we reached this point and how do we break the habit? Well, at the start of the book, I talk about the mindset of people like me, really, who, you know, every year we talk about how urgent the climate situation is and every year the world, broadly speaking, doesn't do anything about it. And every year the climate gets worse and the symptoms of climate change get worse. And so we talk a bit more loudly about how urgent the situation is and every year we get ignored. And it's easy just to go round and round in a loop like that.

And I think there are plenty of well-intentioned climate scientists who really imagined themselves on their deathbeds, sort of lying there, frustrated failures with maybe the one satisfaction of saying, I told you so. And I want something very different from that. So if you don't want to go through the same pattern of failure again and again and again, you have to approach the problem differently. You have to stand further back from it.

have to pause and you have to say, right, how can I see this from new perspectives? What's really going on? How can I dig under the surface of the issues and find the reasons behind the reasons behind the reasons for our failure? And, you know, when I've done that, how can I identify something new which will create success even when everything else has failed? When I went through that exercise, what it took me to was that the reason the cops have been failing, has been systematic, very cynical, very well-funded, dishonesty, not least from the fossil fuel industry, following the playbook that was laid down by the tobacco industry, to confuse the science, and then, you know, first to deny the science, then to confuse the science, and then to kind of vaguely go along with the science, but not really to

allow policymakers to come up with any policies that would actually succeed in reducing the amount of fossil fuel coming out of the ground. So there's so much, you know, this has led to this crazy situation, really, where, you know, we finish a cop and we're still not talking really clearly about actions that are designed specifically to reduce fossil fuel coming out of the ground, for which there's one clear thing that almost any climate scientist or economist will tell you is that, you know, a carbon price is the by far the simplest mechanic to do that. I'm open to office about other possibilities, but the carbon price is clearly the most obvious

option. And the reason we don't talk about that at the climate cops is because it will work. It's so ridiculous. So we have to get to the bottom of this. And if we're going to get anything better, we have to take the dishonesty and the deceit out of the decision-making process because it's just such a spanner in the works that it's completely disabling us from anything meaningful at all. And the way to do that is just to care more about it, scrutinize for it harder, and when we see it, we need to object very strongly. We need to treat it,

you know, to repeat, we need to treat it as abuse. So how about another sort of argument that you hear coming from some quarters, which is, well, the global population is growing. And I say, well, of course, we're using more fossil fuels. Of course we're changing our land use. You know, what do you have to say about that? Well, that's interesting. In the first half of the book, I really lay out in detail various elements of the polycrisis and population growth is one of them. And the good news is that from a technical point of view, they are all solvable.

I mean, that's what's so frustrating is why aren't we solving these technically solvable challenges? But specifically on population, some people think that, you know, population is really, you know, at the heart of everything that's going wrong. But there's some quite good news. It actually isn't. 12 billion careful and environmentally astute, aware people on this planet could live quite nicely, whereas one billion environmentally reckless people would have no trouble trashing the place. And the good news on population turns out to be, and there's plenty of evidence for this, that if you do some basic social things that we should do anyway, like alleviating extreme property, making sure that everybody's got basic rights, especially basic women's rights,

and choice, specifically choice over whether they have a baby or not, then what you find in country after country is that the population naturally peaks and goes into a gently managed decline. And that's absolutely clear-cut what we need to do. And in fact, some of the more recent modelling on this is showing that if you take account of these socio-economic factors, like the ability to increase human rights and take away extreme poverty and provide healthcare,

then actually the population might even peak below 9 billion. So that's really quite good news. And for those, you know, there are some people who talk about how population growth is economically essential. And I unpick that a bit in the book because that is a completely bogus narrative. We have all the efficiency that we need in the world to be able to look after our population

with a much smaller proportion of people are actually going to work. All we need to do is make sure that more people are more focused on doing the things that actually matter to us and provide quality of life, like looking after those who need looking up. after, providing food, providing the essential things and providing things that really do add

quality and not providing the things that just cause environmental damage and actually don't enable us to live better. So we've talked about an awful lot there and kind of by way of closing, if the solutions are there, you know, why haven't we implemented them? Well, I mean, this is what's so frustrating and what we need to understand better. So in the book, I described this polycrisis or really a meta crisis by in layers. So at the outer layer, we have the physical things that we hear about like climate and food and nature and so on. And they're all technically solvable. And then when you've asked the first level of question, why aren't we solving these technical questions? It takes you into questions of, you know, what is it about our politics that isn't right?

What is it about our media that's not right? Our businesses. Is there too much inequality in the world for us to be able to deal with these things? The answers, yes. What's our relationship with technology? How does that need to change? The answer is quite a bit. Humanity needs a new relationship with technology. You know, questions about education and so on. And then you ask yourself, well, all right, but all these things are doable.

What's stopping us for doing those things? And that takes us into fundamental questions about how we've got to learn how to think and the values that we need to cultivate. Because that's probably at the heart of the book. and one of those key values is honesty. It's just, I'm not saying this for any other reason than the pragmatic reason of if we want to deal with the challenges we face, we have to insist on very high standards of honesty. So, you know, honesty and also respect, you know, another critical, which I talk less about in the book,

but it's still critically important, is the basic value of treating all human beings in the world. with equal respect as humans, because the reality is there are 8 billion of us on this planet now, like it or not, and we will thrive together or not at all. That's just a hard reality. The world is too fragile now for us to be able to get by without having the full 8 billion people working together to manage these global challenges. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius, brought to you from the team behind BBC Science Focus. That was Mike Berners-Lee. To discover more about the topics we've just discussed, check out his latest book, A Climate of Truth, why we need it and how to get it.

If you liked what you just heard, then please do consider subscribing to Instant Genius on your preferred podcast platform. If you're interested in seeing the presenters and guests in person, then also check out our YouTube channel at Science Focus. The current issue of BBC Science Focus magazine is out now. Pick up a copy wherever you buy your favourite magazines or download us on your app store of choice. You can also find us on Apple News or online at sciencefocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal.

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