Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps9 Syys 2025

Josh Visits the South Pacific: Climate Chaos, Chinese Bribes & Mosquitoes

What can a stunningly beautiful, dirt-poor, corrupt, tropical-island nation teach us about the battle between China and the West... and about how climate chaos will affect you?

A lot, it turns out. In this bonus episode, Josh is on the ground in Solomon Islands, where leaders from across the Pacific are currently attending the 54th Pacific Islands Forum Meeting. Beneath all the happy-talk about foreign aid is a deeper subtext. The big rich players (i.e. Australia) are trying to bribe their tiny South Pacific neighbours into siding with the West instead of China.

Josh visits a freshwater spring in the jungle with one of Australia's leading hydro-geologists, Sam Buchanan, who's stationed in Solomon Islands to manage its long-term water projects. Sam works for the principal scientific and technical organisation in the Pacific region, The Pacific Community, and is a world-leading expert on water security and climate resilience in small island developing states. He's also one of Josh's oldest friends, who brought to Josh's attention this amazing story in a forgotten tropical battleground.

Josh and Sam drive around Guadalcanal, the country's main island (and the site of the famous WWII battle in which a young naval officer named John F Kennedy made his name), discussing how the country gets its water, how it gets energy, how foreign aid is distributed, how geophysicists are using MRI technology to scan for underground water, and what this all has to do with DOGE, Trump, and subsidence in the Central Valley of California.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

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JUST JOSH: The Unlearned Lesson of 9/11

It's a quarter-century since 9/11. What do we need to understand about its legacy, so as to handle the next quarter-century better? Josh was a college student visiting the World Trade Towers the summe...

10 Syys 2h 39min

Jewish Comedy at the Bondi Attack

Has a secret in your ancestry ever changed who you are? Imagine being a non-Jewish comedian who suddenly finds out he's Jewish. What do you do? You put on a comedy show on the site of the worst antise...

7 Syys 1h 20min

Are Men Toxic?

A sex scandal involving star players for the Sydney Swans has rocked Australia. Coinciding with a spate of violence against women, the country is revisiting its all-too-familiar conversation about how...

3 Syys 26min

What is Elon Up To?: An Idiot’s Guide to Space and Why You Need to Pay Attention

You may not realise it, but humankind is on the cusp of an extraordinary space race. Are we about to become a multi-planetary civilisation? Do we really need a super-fuel-tanker floating in space? Jus...

31 Elo 1h 53min

Glenn Loury: Are we censoring ourselves to death?

In this recording of a live event at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Josh hosts a one-on-one conversation with the legendary American intellectual, Glenn Loury. Loury is one of America's most infl...

27 Elo 26min

Jason Arday, Suey Park & the Identity Hunger Games

Josh has been reflecting on what the tragedy of Cambridge University's youngest-ever Black professor reveals about the high-stakes identity game we've all been enlisted into. In this solo episode, he ...

24 Elo 30min

How the Public Shaming Machine was Built with Jon Ronson

What should we make of the public shaming machine we have built? Following the death of the Cambridge academic Jason Arday, Josh checks in with the godfather of public shaming, Jon Ronson. His 2015 bo...

20 Elo 22min

The Case Against Israel with Peter Beinart

Peter Beinart is arguably the world’s most influential Jewish anti-Zionist. He’s a journalist and a professor of journalism and political science. But in American and Jewish cultural life, he’s far ...

17 Elo 1h 35min