Cabot Conversations

This podcast series showcases the research stories of members of the Cabot Institute for the Environment at the University of Bristol.

We speak to Cabot Institute for the Environment's Global Environmental Challenges Master's by Research student, Matthew Lillywhite about his research journey and project on building wind turbines out of renewable natural materials.

Nature storyteller Zakiya Mackenzie and climate justice researcher Dr Alix Dietzel discuss their experiences of climate change action and decision making in the city of Bristol and the importance of justice and intersectional engagement in the climate emergency.

Professor Susan Parnell, who researches the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in African cities, talks to Bristol City Council's Allan Macleod about how the SDGs are implemented in the city of Bristol and what can be learned at the local scale in order to make global progress on the Goals.

Join biologists Professor Jane Memmott and Dr Tommaso Jucker as they discuss the benefits of ecosystem services and nature based solutions and the tremendous potential of implementing them over the next five to ten years.

Geochemist Dr Kate Hendry and Dr Laurence Publicover, a senior lecturer in English, have been working closely together on ocean floor research. Listen to this fascinating conversation on how their two differing forms of research can come together to help understand more about our ocean floor and it's important relationship to the climate crisis.

Cabot Institute for the Environment scientists, Dr Gemma Coxon and Dr Ross Woods, highlight some surprising facts about the water system and how nature based solutions to drought and floods may not serve the purpose we want, especially if implemented without sufficient prior research.

Environmental historian Dr Daniel Haines and geohazard scientist Dr Max Werner talk about their different approaches to earthquakes and how they came to work together on them. They also explain the links between earthquakes and climate change and why we need to factor in climate change to existing natural hazards and risk management.

Dr Valeska Ting and Professor Dale Southerton are two academics from completely different disciplines, both working on net zero. In this episode they meet each other for the first time to discuss their net zero research problems and learn quite quickly the benefits of interdisciplinary working and how they can work together to solve them.

Climate scientist Dr Eunice Lo and Medical Statistics Professor, Richard Morris, discuss the implications of heat on our health and the links between rising temperatures from climate change, increased occurance of heatwaves and increased hospitalisations and deaths.

Roger Griffith MBE and Professor Rich Pancost from the Cabot Institute for the Environment discuss the power of people, words and cultural change in the climate crisis and how community engagement and empowering communities will help us all.

What exactly is the climate emergency and why is it so important? Listen to climate science experts Dame Professor Julia Slingo, ex Met Office Chief Scientist and Dr Dann Mitchell from the Cabot Institute for the Environment talk about the issue. The conversation covers not just the science but their experiences of different generations working in climate science, how we'll need adaptive adaptation to address the climate crisis, and much more!