I had the privilege of hosting 3 incredible guests who each deserve an episode of their own. We tackled the topic of optimism, solutions and how the climate story needs to move on to the part where we’re saving the world, not just saying how f*cked we are.
Lucy Siegle is a journalist, broadcaster and author who has reported on climate, nature and the fashion industry's footprint for two decades, including as a reporter on BBC One's The One Show.
Angus Hervey is a political economist and the founding editor of Fix The News, the solutions journalism newsletter that goes looking for the progress the headlines usually miss.
Solitaire Townsend is the co-founder and Chief Solutionist of Futerra, the sustainability agency, and the author of The Solutionists, a book on how business can fix the future.
Together, we each brought a climate solution we’re excited about and discussed them.
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Links
Fix The News: https://fixthenews.com/
Futerra: https://www.wearefuterra.com/
Solitaire’s website for books, speaking and more: https://www.solitairetownsend.com/
Lucy’s Substack: https://theweathermakers.substack.com/
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We also cover:
The stat that 50% of under 30s think we're doomed, and what that has done to the youth climate movement
Why the climate movement has been stuck at the "inciting incident" of the story for 30 years
How Just Stop Oil briefly pushed climate coverage level with mentions of ghosts and cake
Why climate scientists are more hopeful than the public, and why recycling is still the solution people name most
Angus on why 2026 has been a low wildfire year globally, and why cameras in Western Europe skew our perception
Why Angus thinks the biggest climate story is China, from its EV boom to its emissions plateauing
How giving indigenous groups land tenure could keep carbon in the ground (only 14% have official tenure, according to Angus)
Why fear doesn't motivate most people, and the pioneers, settlers and prospectors model
Lucy on Suzanne Simard's forest research and a tourism-funded recovery project with the Hamalco people in British Columbia
Restage, a plan to recirculate the props and sets the UK film and theatre industry throws away
How writers and filmmakers can weave climate solutions into romance, action and everyday stories
The National Emergency Briefing and why it gives people something to do next
Why Solitaire and Lucy argue that dismissing personal action is sexist, including the women-led sugar boycotts
Angus on why the UK is doing better than most countries on cutting emissions
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0:00 Why doom does the same job as denial
3:58 Why half of under 30s think we're doomed
6:07 The climate story is stuck in act one
9:29 The fuck doom hats and the waiter who loved one
13:20 Why optimism is a political act
15:10 Ghosts, cake and Just Stop Oil
20:37 Why experts are more hopeful than the public
23:08 Why the world isn't actually on fire
24:50 Climate change is really a China story
27:30 Indigenous land beats locked off parks
29:31 Will good news make people complacent?
32:31 Climate people are the weirdos
34:18 Growing up on coal, now living on solar
37:53 "Is coal bad?"
40:37 Suzanne Simard and the mother tree
42:50 Using tourism money to heal and restore land
47:00 What happens to film sets after the shoot
49:41 On track for five to eight degrees in 1997
51:30 Storytelling is curated emotion, not facts
57:05 Where's the electric Aston Martin in Bond?
59:20 The National Emergency Briefing
1:04:10 Inside the room at the National Emergency Briefing
1:07:33 Why we need to drop the personal action divide
1:12:34 Who benefits when personal action gets dismissed
1:15:40 The UK is doing better than you think
