Saving the World From Bad Ideas

In this episode of Saving the World from Bad Ideas, Mark Lynas speaks with journalist and author Nicholas Niarchos about the dirty, dangerous, and politically fraught supply chains behind lithium-ion batteries. Using cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a central case study, they explore how a technology essential to electrification and decarbonisation became tied to child labour, unsafe artisanal mines, corruption, colonial legacies, and weak global accountability. The conversation pushes back against a simplistic response, namely shutting down cobalt mining altogether. Niarchos argues that cobalt is a highly effective battery material and that the real problem is not the mineral itself, but the governance failures and moral outsourcing that allow abuse to persist across global supply chains.
🧠 Topics Discussed
🔋 Why lithium-ion batteries became central to the clean energy transition
⚙️ Which minerals go into modern batteries, including cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, graphite, and phosphates
🏭 How Exxon helped pioneer lithium-ion battery research before abandoning it
🚗 Why lithium-ion batteries made modern electric vehicles viable
⛏️ Why cobalt from the DRC became so important to battery chemistry
👷 The realities of artisanal mining, including child labour, mine collapses, and extreme precarity
📱 How major brands such as Apple are tied to these supply chains, even when they claim high standards
⚖️ Why industrial mines and artisanal mines differ, but both still raise serious questions
♻️ Why recycling alone does not solve the underlying justice problem
🧪 Whether sodium-ion and other new battery chemistries will reduce dependence on cobalt
🌍 Why the goal should be fixing the supply chain, not abandoning battery technology or Congo itself
👩‍🏫 Guest Bio
Nicholas Niarchos is a journalist and author whose work focuses on conflict, extraction, inequality, and global supply chains. In this conversation he discusses his book on the hidden human and political costs behind lithium-ion batteries and the minerals that power the energy transition, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
📚 Recommended Reading & Resources
The Elements of Power by Nicholas Niarchos
Reporting on cobalt mining and battery supply chains in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Research on artisanal and industrial cobalt mining
Work on battery chemistry, electrification, and critical minerals
Analysis of colonial extraction, governance, and resource politics in Central Africa
💬 Quote Highlights
💬 “The bad idea is the battery supply chain itself, which arose from a series of decisions that didn’t seem to be taken particularly consciously, but seem to be driven by avarice, essentially.” - Nicholas Niarchos
💬 “I have been to mines that sit directly in Apple’s supply chain and watched as people without shoes go into these mines.” - Nicholas Niarchos
💬 “The iPhone is the great success story for Apple. Don’t forget it. This success was built on the backs of these kinds of labor conditions. - Nicholas Niarchos
💬 “If we start recycling all our material, which we’re admittedly a very, very long way off from, what gets left in Congo? - Nicholas Niarchos
💬 “There’s no need to go to sodium. There’s no need to try and figure out new technologies... because we have the technology. The technology is the lithium ion battery.” - Nicholas Niarchos
💬 “The bad idea is the supply chain, not the use of cobalt in batteries.” - Mark Lynas
🌐 About WePlanet
WePlanet is an international movement campaigning for science-based solutions to the climate, nature and development crises. Through conversations like this one, we challenge bad ideas, spotlight better ones, and make the case for a more abundant, resilient and hopeful future.
📥 Join the Conversation
💬 [email protected]
📩 https://weplanet.org/podcast
👁️ https://twitter.com/weplanetint

In this episode of Saving the World from Bad Ideas, Mark Lynas speaks with Stanford historian David Holloway about one of the most dangerous assumptions of the nuclear age: history shows nuclear war will never happen. Drawing on Holloway’s new book Nuclear Weapons and International History, they trace the development of the bomb from the Manhattan Project to the thermonuclear age, the Cuban Missile Crisis, launch-on-warning doctrines, arms control, and the unraveling of the post-Cold War nuclear order. The conversation makes clear that the fact nuclear war has not happened yet is no guarantee it never will. Instead, it is a story of repeated near misses, fragile restraint, and a continuing risk that humanity has learned to treat as background noise.

🧠 Topics Discussed
☢️ Why David Holloway wanted to write an international history of nuclear weapons
💥 The difference between atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs
🔥 Why thermonuclear weapons transformed the scale of human destructiveness
🧊 How the Cold War became a confrontation shaped by catastrophic nuclear risk
🚨 How close the Cuban Missile Crisis came to becoming a nuclear war
🛳️ The Soviet submarine incident on Black Saturday and the role of sheer luck
☎️ Why the hotline and early arms control efforts emerged after Cuba
🕊️ How scientists helped launch the anti-nuclear movement
🎯 How deterrence, mutual assured destruction, and launch-on-warning doctrines evolved
⚠️ Why false alarms and misread signals remain one of the greatest nuclear dangers
🤖 How artificial intelligence and new technologies may make nuclear risk worse
🛰️ Why missile defense systems like Star Wars and the proposed Golden Dome are so controversial
📉 How the arms control system built during the Cold War has eroded
🌍 Why a world with fewer nuclear weapons is still a world in grave danger
❓ Whether humanity can find an alternative to living indefinitely with nuclear arsenals

👩‍🏫 Guest Bio
David Holloway is Emeritus Professor of History at Stanford University and one of the world’s leading historians of nuclear weapons and the Cold War. His work has focused on the Soviet Union, international security, nuclear strategy, and the political history of the atomic age. His new book, Nuclear Weapons and International History, offers a sweeping account of how nuclear weapons shaped global politics from 1945 onward.

📚 Recommended Reading & Resources
Nuclear Weapons and International History by David Holloway
Six Minutes to Winter by Mark Lynas
Research and historical accounts of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Writing on the Russell-Einstein Manifesto and the Pugwash movement
Histories of nuclear deterrence, arms control, and the thermonuclear arms race

💬 Quote Highlights
💬 “I think we’re entering a new and very dangerous period, partly linked to changes in the world order.” - David Holloway
💬 “The H-bomb is a big step forward in terms of sheer destructiveness.” - David Holloway
💬 “It was a war they didn’t want that they came close to having.” - David Holloway
💬 “We’re entering a new and very dangerous period.” -David Holloway
💬 “We can live with nuclear weapons... I think it’s a very bad idea.” -David Holloway

🌐 About WePlanet
WePlanet is an international movement campaigning for science-based solutions to the climate, nature and development crises. Through conversations like this one, we challenge bad ideas, spotlight better ones, and make the case for a more abundant, resilient and hopeful future.

📥 Join the Conversation
💬 [email protected]
📩 https://weplanet.org/podcast
👁️ https://twitter.com/weplanetint

“Attenborough’s films ignore human impacts.”
In this episode of Saving the World from Bad Ideas, Mark Lynas speaks with filmmaker and environmental storyteller Colin Butfield, co-founder of Open Planet Studios and a long-time collaborator of David Attenborough. They discuss how Attenborough’s work has evolved from classic nature spectacle toward a much more explicit confrontation with ecological destruction, restoration, and humanity’s role in shaping the living world. Through the making of Ocean with David Attenborough, they explore the shocking reality of bottom trawling and Antarctic krill fishing, the changing grammar of nature documentaries in the Anthropocene, and why stories of damage now have to sit alongside stories of recovery. It is a rich conversation about storytelling, responsibility, and the power of film to show that human impacts can no longer be ignored.
🧠 Topics Discussed:
🎥 What it is like working with David Attenborough over nearly two decades

🗣️ How Attenborough delivers those iconic pieces to camera

🌍 How nature documentaries shifted from pristine spectacle to ecological reality

🌊 Why Ocean with David Attenborough was made as an urgent film about human impacts

🐟 How bottom trawling devastates marine ecosystems on an industrial scale

🛑 Why bottom trawling is still allowed in many marine protected areas

🐋 How Antarctic krill fishing competes directly with whales and destabilises the Southern Ocean food web

🧾 Why “sustainable” seafood labels often deserve much more scrutiny

📚 How films can remain true to documentary storytelling while still driving real-world campaigns

🎬 Why Open Planet gives footage away for education and advocacy

🌱 What ecological recovery can look like when people choose restoration and protection

🤝 Why humans are not inherently destructive and can become a force for good

🐻 What it takes to film extraordinary wildlife and wild places around the world

🚀 Why “we can always go and live on Mars” is its own terrible environmental fantasy

👩‍🏫 Guest Bio:Colin Butfield is co-founder and director of Open Planet Studios. As a filmmaker, writer and environmental storyteller, he has worked on major productions including A Life on Our Planet, Breaking Boundaries, Our Planet, and Ocean with David Attenborough. He has also co-written Ocean with David Attenborough and works at the intersection of documentary storytelling, conservation, and public engagement.
📚 Recommended Reading & Resources
Ocean by David Attenborough and Colin Butfield

Ocean with David Attenborough

Open Planet

Campaigns and research on bottom trawling in marine protected areas

Work on marine protection, krill fisheries, and ocean restoration

Sea Shepherd footage and reporting on the Southern Ocean krill fishery

💬 Quote Highlights💬 “This is what we’ve chosen to do as a society or chosen to allow.”Colin Butfield
💬 “I can absolutely sympathize with a community casting nets, even bottom trawling though I hope we can get away from that to feed their families, feed their communities, and earn a living. That’s a million miles away from going all the way down to Antarctica, hauling up krill for pet food and supplements.”Colin Butfield
💬 “You just got to a point where it felt very strange... not to mention humanity or talk about the changes that are happening in them.”Colin Butfield
💬 “It was unavoidable. You just can’t ignore this. It’s crazy to ignore it.”Colin Butfield
💬 “I don’t think humans are inherently bad.”Colin Butfield
🌐 About WePlanetWePlanet is an international movement campaigning for science-based solutions to the climate, nature and development crises. Through conversations like this one, we challenge bad ideas, spotlight better ones, and make the case for a more abundant, resilient and hopeful future.
📥 Join the Conversation💬 [email protected]
📩 https://weplanet.org/podcast
👁️ https://twitter.com/weplanetint

Antarctica is the least disturbed continent on Earth — and for some of the world's most powerful fishing nations, that's not a reason to protect it. It's a reason to go there next. Claire Christian, Executive Director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, joins Mark Lynas to make the case that the bad idea is to look at the antarctica regian as a pantry, plenty of krill in the ocean, right? That idea still persists, debated in closed rooms in Hobart, and dressed up in sustainability labels.
Christian traces the arc from industrial whaling and penguin-boiling in the early 1900s — one of the first modern wildlife protection campaigns — through the Cold War-era Antarctic Treaty miracle, to today's battleground: krill. The Southern Ocean krill fishery is small by global standards but growing fast, dominated by Norwegian vessels, eyed hungrily by China, and certified "sustainable" by the Marine Stewardship Council despite trawlers threading directly through the feeding grounds of recovering whale populations.
What emerges is a picture of governance under pressure. CAMLR — the commission governing the Southern Ocean fishery — operates by consensus, meaning Russia and China can block marine protected area proposals indefinitely while simultaneously pushing to expand catch limits. Two MPAs exist (the Ross Sea and the South Orkneys). More are on the table, extensively researched, scientifically rigorous — and stalled. The Antarctic Peninsula, one of the fastest-warming places on the planet, still has no formal protection.
Christian also unpacks the krill industry's favourite talking point: that the catch is less than 1% of total biomass. The problem isn't total biomass — it's where the fishing happens. Krill concentrate in a few small areas. So do the penguins, seals and recovering whale populations that depend on them. The wildlife can't go elsewhere. The ships could. So far, CAMLR hasn't required it.
The meta bad idea, in Christian's own words: that the burden of proof should rest on nature rather than on us.

🧠 Topics Discussed:
🐧 The original sin: industrial whaling, seal hunting, and boiling penguins for oil — and the early 1900s campaign that became one of the first modern wildlife protection efforts
🐳 The recovery miracle: humpback whales possibly back to 80% of pre-whaling numbers — and the extraordinary discovery that more whales actually means more krill
🦐 Krill 101: why almost everything in the Southern Ocean either eats krill or eats something that eats krill — and why a 50-armed predatory starfish is just as important as a penguin
📜 The Antarctic Treaty system: how Cold War geopolitics accidentally produced one of the most forward-looking conservation treaties in history
🎣 How krill fishing started: the Soviet Union, the El Dorado effect, and the logic of "the whales are gone, so there must be more krill for us"
🏷️ The MSC certification problem: how a "sustainable" label on suppresses pressure on CAMLR to actually improve management
🌡️ Climate change as wild card: sea ice loss, shifting krill distributions, and why uncertainty is an argument for more precaution, not less
🗳️ CAMLR's consensus trap: how Russia and China demand more science before protecting — but not before fishing
⚖️ The burden of proof argument: who should have to prove harm — industry or nature?

👤 Guest Bio:
Claire Christian is the Executive Director of ASOC, the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition — a global network of NGOs dedicated to the protection of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. She has been an observer at CAMLR negotiations and has written extensively on marine conservation governance, MSC certification, and Southern Ocean fisheries management.

📚 Recommended Reading & Resources:
ASOC — Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition

CAMLR — Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources

The Antarctic Treaty Secretariat

High Seas Treaty (BBNJ Agreement) — IUCN overview

Clean energy won't work in the global south... right?
At a moment when the fossil fueled economy is cracking under geopolitical pressure, Daan Walter of EMBER brings the data that reframes everything: clean energy is moving ahead, in developing countries — it's already winning.
Walter unpacks EMBER's latest electricity review findings: for the first time, wind and solar absorbed nearly all global electricity demand growth in 2024, causing fossil fuel generation to actually fall. And unlike the economic shocks of 2020 or 2013, this is structural.
The episode covers the ElectroTech revolution's three core drivers — none of which are explicitly about climate. Walter explains why emerging economies, far from lagging, are leapfrogging the West: over 50% of CVF nations now out-solar the United States.
The Strait of Hormuz crisis is accelerating everything. Pakistan's bottom-up solar revolution — millions buying off Alibaba, DIY-installing, disconnecting from failing utilities — is the preview of what comes next everywhere.
Nuclear gets a candid assessment too, the question is how it can play nice with solar dominating the grid.
Walter closes with a refreshingly honest admission: we don't know yet how to solve the last 5-10% of the grid cleanly — but that's fine. The right move is to sprint the 90% we can solve and invest in R&D for the rest, rather than let perfect be the enemy of transformational.
🧠 Topics Discussed:
⚡ ElectroTech defined: why wind, solar, batteries, EVs, and heat pumps all cluster around electricity as their magnetic center
📉 Bad idea autopsied: "clean energy is too expensive for developing countries" — true five years ago, dangerously wrong today
🌍 CVF nations leapfrogging: 50%+ of the world's most climate-vulnerable countries out-solar the US
💸 Capex parity moment: upfront costs of EVs and solar panels now matching fossil alternatives — the game-changer for capital-constrained economies
🌞 Solar as baseload: 80-90% uptime solar + battery achievable at ~$100-120/MWh; UAE Masdar project hit 99.5% uptime below $70/MWh
🛢️ Hormuz crisis as accelerant: biggest energy shock since the 1970s, turbocharging electrotech exports from China globally

👨‍💼 Guest Bio:
Daan Walter is a Principal at EMBER, where he leads global energy strategy research. His CV spans Rocky Mountain Institute (batteries, efficiency, mineral demand), McKinsey, and two graduate degrees from the University of Cambridge — one in nuclear energy, one in theoretical physics. He's one of the sharpest analysts tracking the real-time pace of the ElectroTech revolution.

💬 Quote Highlights:
"The answer is not 'you're wrong.' The answer is: you were right five years ago." — Daan Walter
"The poorest countries in the world and the poorest families within countries are adopting ElectroTech because it's the cheapest option now, not the most expensive." — Daan Walter
"We identify three key drivers of the ElectroTech revolution across the world. None of those three are explicitly climate." — Daan Walter
"Every country in the world has a small Saudi Arabia worth of energy falling from the skies on them every year. All they need to do is put a panel up and capture it." — Daan Walter
"By 2040, we might be in a very highly electrified, very low-carbon economy — in the same way that by 2040, we might be in an economy that largely runs on AI white-collar work." — Daan Walter

🌐 About WePlanet:WePlanet is a global citizen and science movement challenging bad ideas and championing evidence-based solutions for climate, nature, and human progress. Learn more at weplanet.org

📥 Join the Conversation💬 Email: [email protected]📩 Subscribe: weplanet.org/podcast👁️ Follow: @weplanetint