Our thinking

I’ve got 39 solutions and seagrass is one

21 January, 2021

A new BBC Radio 4 podcast, 39 Ways to Save the Planet, examines powerful, exciting and surprising solutions to climate change. It’s an inspiring listen. 

The programme has a clear credo: “We got ourselves into this climate mess with aviation, deforestation, and even too much procreation. But we can get out of it.” The ideas it goes on to examine helpfully recognise that there is no single silver bullet for tackling the climate crisis: the road to net zero is paved with a wide range of solutions working together.  

The programme is made up of 15-minute episodes, each focusing on a single idea. The solutions, of which there are 10 so far, range from the highly technological to the deeply natural.  

On the side of technology come inventions like BladeBUG: a remote-controlled robot that can inspect and perform minor fixes on offshore wind turbines, radically reducing the cost of this hugely important source of future energy. Showcasing the power of natural solutions is an episode about the carbon-fixing qualities of seagrass. Not to mention a fascinating account of how, in the Arctic, felling trees and introducing herbivores to graze and trample could protect the permafrost. Of course, the solutions to climate change must be social and political too; angles that are covered in episodes about environmental policy and the role of female education in tackling the climate crisis. 

These bitesize pieces of climate inspiration are well worth a listen. Find them on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. 

By Ben Wood