#256: 40 Degrees

07/26/22 • 38 min

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Famously soggy, predictably chilly. Well, not any more, cos Blighty has joined the global combustability club after turning in a world-beating and very much oven-ready 40.3 degrees C of scorchiosity in its latest heatwave.So how freaked out should we feel? Cos like, this was always going to happen wasn't it? And, as sure as tropical night follows sweltering day, it's only going to get hotter from here.But does extreme weather's inevitability in anyway dent its horror? Will the fact that much of London ACTUALLY CAUGHT ON FIRE change inhofe-ish minds about the need for climate action?What, in other words, The Hell are we supposed to make of all this?Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell at Design by Mondial. Ecoguff read out by Arabella.Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.patreon.com/sustainababble.MERCH: sustainababble.teemill.comAvailable on iTunes, Spotify, Acast & all those types of things, or at sustainababble.fish. Visit us at @thebabblewagon and at Facebook.com/sustainababble. Email us at [email protected].

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#255: Green Capitalism?

How much, precisely, is one whale worth? Half an elephant? Three dozen gibbons?"Don't be silly, Ol and Dave, you can't put a price on nature" we hear you cry. Well tell it to the IMF, because they say our blubbery friends retail for $2m, a big figure which, in the world of excel spreadsheets and cost benefit analyses, means whales are worth saving. Unlike, say, earwigs, who aren't priced up and therefore can extinctify themselves without wider consequences.Bonkers, no? Well that's what Adrienne Buller, author of fab new book The Value of a Whale: On the illusions of Green Capitalism wants us to think about.Because there is also an argument that goes 1) everything's dead or dying, 2) the powerful only care about money, 3) give animals a dollar value & men in suits might prefer them alive, 4) NOTHING ELSE SEEMS TO BE WORKING SO LET'S GIVE THIS A SHOT, EH?We discuss.Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell at Design by Mondial. Ecoguff read out by Arabella.Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.patreon.com/sustainababble.MERCH: sustainababble.teemill.comAvailable on iTunes, Spotify, Acast & all those types of things, or at sustainababble.fish. Visit us at @thebabblewagon and at Facebook.com/sustainababble. Email us at [email protected].

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#257: Bird Flu

Fans of our feathered friends, look away now...If you've been to the coast recently there's every chance you'll have seen, how can we put this delicately, an exceptionally dead bird washed up on the shore. Or, more likely, dozens of the bastards.Bird flu has been around for ever, but evidently got the hump while Covid hogged the viral limelight. Now it's back with a vengeance, ensuring everyone and H5N-y-1 knows its name.Predictably enough, concern is largely reserved for the economic impact of farmed chickens getting the deadly snuffle. But what about skewered skuas or puff-less puffins? Can anything be done to stop them falling from the sky? Might it, I dunno, involve NOT TREATING SENTIENT BEINGS SO GROTESQUELY?Also this week, babble respects are paid to James Lovelock, maverick scientist and father of the Gaia theory, who's dropped off his own perch at the ripe old age of 103.Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell at Design by Mondial. Ecoguff read out by Arabella.Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.patreon.com/sustainababble.MERCH: sustainababble.teemill.comAvailable on iTunes, Spotify, Acast & all those types of things, or at sustainababble.fish. Visit us at @thebabblewagon and at Facebook.com/sustainababble. Email us at [email protected].