In this climategenn episode, I am speaking with journalist-and-author, Andy Neather, about his new book: Rooted In Change – The Stories Behind Sustainable Wine, co authored with Master of Wine, Jane Masters. The authors set out to document the challenges facing all aspects of wine production from the vineyard to the glass.

Order 'Rooted In Change'

Wine makes up an estimated 0.3% of agriculture globally and yet despite this tiny proportion, it is a beverage that humans have been making for thousands of years– serving sometimes with food, or as a ceremonial drink, or, in times more extreme, as a source of calories for French soldiers in the 1st World War trenches.

Today vineyard around the world– from France to Australia or Chile to China– are at risk from worsening impacts of climate change – in that sense, this 0.3% of agriculture is as vulnerable as much of the other 99.7% of agriculture that underpins our global food supply. As Professor Paul Behrens said in the previous episode, 30-40% of inflation on food in the UK is due to climate change.

A decade ago in Champagne, a wine producer told me harvest dates shifted forward in the late 1980s due to warming. Polar researchers I'd interviewed earlier noted Arctic sea ice decline accelerated in the same decade. Both independent observations confirmed the same reality: our world is heating up.

This new book, Rooted In Change, gives us a glimpse of the global response of the wine industry to save it self while acting responsibly as stewards of both land and atmosphere.

In this climategenn episode I am speaking with Professor Paul Behrens, British Academy Global Professor, at the Oxford Martin School, at the University of Oxford, UK. “If we continue on the way we’re going, we just have less and less resiliency in the system, less and less ability to roll with the punches of climate change.”Paul is the keynote speaker at the Sustainability In Drinks conference being held in London on the 21st October, where he will highlighting the incredibly fragile state of food production and supply. This fragility is being exacerbated by climate change.https://sustainabilityindrinks.com/“Some research suggests that food prices will increase between one and three percentage points, so an extra one to three percent per year by 2035, based on climate impacts. Now, the thing you've got to remember on the modelling on this is it's very hard, extremely hard, to model all the different impacts on the food system. In general, when I look at a model or an outcome of the model, I typically think that it's probably going to be a little bit worse than what you read.”Here we discuss the changes urgently required to help us navigate a more resilient pathway to the future. Aside from the Sustainability In Drinks conference on the 21st October, Paul is also part of a broader presentation being given at Westminster Hall in London on 27th November. This National Emergency Briefing on climate change will be given to MP’s, as well as other government officials and business leaders. Please check the link below:https://www.nebriefing.org/In the next episode I speak with author Andy Neather about his newly published book ROOTED IN CHANGE – The Stories Behind Sustainable Wine, coauthored with Jane Masters, Master of Wine. Available to order from the Academie du Vin Library.Thank you to all listeners commenters and members. There are many more episodes being recorded so please do subscribe to stay up to date.

"The car seems like freedom, and it might have been the freedom of the 20th century, but it certainly isn’t the freedom of the 21st century." Dame Hentrietta Moore

In this ClimateGenn episode I am speaking with Professor Dame Henrietta Moore and Arthur Kay about their new book Road Kill – Unveiling the true cost of our toxic relationship with cars.

Despite the motorcars association with freedom, it is become responsible for the degeneration of our town and city centres, enormous fossil fuel consumption, lung damage from air pollution, and a whole host of undesirable impacts.

This book Roadkill is not just about diagnosing our car blindness and true costs of maintaining our addiction to them, it is also about rethinking the future, including urban design and local thinking. Henrietta and Arthur give us insights into how they are tackling this uber-toxic issue. More information on Roadkill and how to order the book can be found here.

IN this ClimateGenn episode I speak with ecologist and founder of the Ecosystem Restoration Communities, John D. Liu. We explore the insights that John has acquired from many years observing nature and humanity, while also pragmatically seeking collective pathways to a better tomorrow.

Full of wisdom and inspiration, it is a pleasure to feature John on the ClimateGenn podcast.

Visit https://genn.cc for more information.

In this Climate.Genn episode I am speaking with Erin Sikorsky, Director at The Center for Climate and Security and also the Security Director at the The International Military Council on Climate and Security. We are discussing issues that Erin covers in her new book, Climate Change on the Battlefield.

With so much focus on national defence spending, while fires and floods are tearing through nations around the world, this is a timely subject. Here, Erin guides us in untangling the contradictions of investing in modern warfare, while simultaneously struggling to keep citizens safe from the extreme impacts of fire and floods that are worsening in intensity and frequency.

In Spain in recent days there has been 199 wild fires counted with more across the northern hemisphere, whilst floods across countries like Pakistan and China, and across S America and beyond, are taking lives and costing billions in infrastructure damage.

Yet, countries are being coerced into spending hundreds of billions on defence that excludes protecting against the raging climate. How we proceed from here has consequences and Erin, with her book ‘Climate Change on the Battlefield’ offers many essential insights.

Order: https://amzn.to/4fAcfi8

In this climategenn episode I speak with climate policy analyst and Research Director at the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, David Spratt. He has recently published a report titled: Warming has reached 1.5°C. What does that mean for climate advocacy?

https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/climateadvocacy2025

David offers his perspective on climate policy through the Australian lens as the Earth heats to 1.5. degrees with no end in sight for the damage that it is causing to human life, nature and infrastructure.

In this ClimateGenn episode I speak with researcher, Rene van Westen. We discuss his recent paper looking at how the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) responds in three different carbon emissions scenarios. This work builds on his – and colleagues – previous research that looked at establishing the conditions for the AMOC to collapse.

René et al's findings shed new light on the risks we are facing from this vital ocean circulation in the Atlantic that connects to the global climate system.

The research paper can be accessed here: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL114611