The Why? Curve

Drill, baby, drill - but does it make sense to hand out, every year, new North Sea extraction licences for oil and gas as the UK government has promised? Aren’t we supposed to be ending our reliance on fossil fuels? Or is it essential for energy security to harvest what we have on our doorstep? And is the cost of a more rapid transition to renewable sources of energy too high for hard-pressed families struggling to pay their bills? Phil and Roger quiz Gavin Bridge, Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Durham, and Fellow of the Durham Energy Institute, on the costs and benefits of more North Sea extraction.

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How valuable is higher education? If your degree isn’t one that’s going to help you get a good job, is it worth the huge debts you’ll be saddled with when you leave? The government wants to phase out degrees that don’t improve students’ “earning potential” - so goodbye gender studies or surf science? And what about art and literature, history and pure sciences? Chris Millward, professor of practice in education policy at Birmingham University walks Phil and Roger through what’s valuable and what isn’t in higher education.

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Paris, after a damp start, is sprinting through the games - but at what cost? Closed bars and cafes behind security barriers, fewer visitors in the run-up to the Olympics, and a massive bill for all the building-work and administration. The money from the tickets and broadcast rights goes to the International Olympic Committee, so will the city benefit at all? Many venues are turning down the chance of staging big sports events like this because the costs - social as well as financial - outweigh the gains, and can land cities with huge debts. So what is the answer? Leave it to the money-no-object venues like Qatar and Saudi Arabia? Or spread a games over several countries? Or have one permanent venue, funded by all? Professor Simon Chadwick of SKEMA Business School in Lille tells Phil and Roger how hosting the Olympics needs an overhaul.

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Is cinema dying? The Oscars were the usual triumphant mix of glamour, glitz and terrible speeches, but is the film industry what it was? Streaming, video games, Covid and the cost of living have led to a downturn in audience figures in the US and the UK, although there are faint signs of a revival. Do we still want to sit passively in a big dark room to be entertained, or would we rather be in our own homes, interacting with the characters and stories? Does the old model of cinema still work? Sarah Atkinson, Professor of Screen Media at King’s College London, tells Phil and Roger it will survive but it needs to change.

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