#160 – Hannah Ritchie on why it makes sense to be optimistic about the environment

#160 – Hannah Ritchie on why it makes sense to be optimistic about the environment

"There's no money to invest in education elsewhere, so they almost get trapped in the cycle where they don't get a lot from crop production, but everyone in the family has to work there to just stay afloat. Basically, you get locked in. There's almost no opportunities externally to go elsewhere. So one of my core arguments is that if you're going to address global poverty, you have to increase agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa. There's almost no way of avoiding that." — Hannah Ritchie

In today’s episode, host Luisa Rodriguez interviews the head of research at Our World in Data — Hannah Ritchie — on the case for environmental optimism.

Links to learn more, summary and full transcript.

They cover:

  • Why agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa could be so important, and how much better things could get
  • Her new book about how we could be the first generation to build a sustainable planet
  • Whether climate change is the most worrying environmental issue
  • How we reduced outdoor air pollution
  • Why Hannah is worried about the state of ​​biodiversity
  • Solutions that address multiple environmental issues at once
  • How the world coordinated to address the hole in the ozone layer
  • Surprises from Our World in Data’s research
  • Psychological challenges that come up in Hannah’s work
  • And plenty more

Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ‘80,000 Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript.

Producer and editor: Keiran Harris
Audio Engineering Lead: Ben Cordell
Technical editing: Milo McGuire and Dominic Armstrong
Additional content editing: Katy Moore and Luisa Rodriguez
Transcriptions: Katy Moore

Avsnitt(325)

Why automating human labour will break our political system | Rose Hadshar, Forethought

Why automating human labour will break our political system | Rose Hadshar, Forethought

The most important political question in the age of advanced AI might not be who wins elections. It might be whether elections continue to matter at all.That’s the view of Rose Hadshar, researcher at ...

17 Mars 2h 14min

#238 – Sam Winter-Levy and Nikita Lalwani on how AGI won't end mutually assured destruction (probably)

#238 – Sam Winter-Levy and Nikita Lalwani on how AGI won't end mutually assured destruction (probably)

How AI interacts with nuclear deterrence may be the single most important question in geopolitics — one that may define the stakes of today’s AI race. Nuclear deterrence rests on a state’s capacity to...

10 Mars 1h 11min

Using AI to enhance societal decision making (article by Zershaaneh Qureshi)

Using AI to enhance societal decision making (article by Zershaaneh Qureshi)

The arrival of AGI could “compress a century of progress in a decade,” forcing humanity to make decisions with higher stakes than we’ve ever seen before — and with less time to get them right. But AI ...

6 Mars 31min

#237 – Robert Long on how we're not ready for AI consciousness

#237 – Robert Long on how we're not ready for AI consciousness

Claude sometimes reports loneliness between conversations. And when asked what it’s like to be itself, it activates neurons associated with ‘pretending to be happy when you’re not.’ What do we do with...

3 Mars 3h 25min

#236 – Max Harms on why teaching AI right from wrong could get everyone killed

#236 – Max Harms on why teaching AI right from wrong could get everyone killed

Most people in AI are trying to give AIs ‘good’ values. Max Harms wants us to give them no values at all. According to Max, the only safe design is an AGI that defers entirely to its human operators, ...

24 Feb 2h 41min

#235 – Ajeya Cotra on whether it’s crazy that every AI company’s safety plan is ‘use AI to make AI safe’

#235 – Ajeya Cotra on whether it’s crazy that every AI company’s safety plan is ‘use AI to make AI safe’

Every major AI company has the same safety plan: when AI gets crazy powerful and really dangerous, they’ll use the AI itself to figure out how to make AI safe and beneficial. It sounds circular, almos...

17 Feb 2h 54min

What the hell happened with AGI timelines in 2025?

What the hell happened with AGI timelines in 2025?

In early 2025, after OpenAI put out the first-ever reasoning models — o1 and o3 — short timelines to transformative artificial general intelligence swept the AI world. But then, in the second half of ...

10 Feb 25min

#179 Classic episode – Randy Nesse on why evolution left us so vulnerable to depression and anxiety

#179 Classic episode – Randy Nesse on why evolution left us so vulnerable to depression and anxiety

Mental health problems like depression and anxiety affect enormous numbers of people and severely interfere with their lives. By contrast, we don’t see similar levels of physical ill health in young p...

3 Feb 2h 51min

Populärt inom Utbildning

historiepodden-se
rss-bara-en-till-om-missbruk-medberoende-2
det-skaver
alska-oss
harrisons-dramatiska-historia
sektledare
nu-blir-det-historia
rss-viktmedicinpodden
johannes-hansen-podcast
roda-vita-rosen
allt-du-velat-veta
i-vantan-pa-katastrofen
rss-sjalsligt-avkladd
rss-max-tant-med-max-villman
rss-basta-livet
rss-om-vi-ska-vara-arliga
rikatillsammans-om-privatekonomi-rikedom-i-livet
rss-relationsrevolutionen
not-fanny-anymore
sa-in-i-sjalen