Our Biggest Experiment: A History of the Climate Crisis - RSA

Our biggest experiment: A history of the climate crisis

Public talks / Video

 - 

Online via YouTube

  • Climate change
  • Environment
  • Science

How did the world become addicted to fossil fuels? How did we discover that electricity may be our saviour?

Watch the replay of this event on YouTube

Who first sounded the alarm bell for climate change, and how could we seemingly ignore all these papers from the 1960s or 1970s musing that “if” we didn’t do anything, climate change could worsen significantly after the year 2000?

As we look forward to COP26, Alice Bell takes us back to explore the earliest signs and causes of climate change in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, through the advancing realisation that global warming was a significant problem in the 1950s and right up to the growth of the environmental movement, climate scepticism and present-day political responses.

The science and numbers are vital to understanding climate change but they’re only part of the story. If we really want to understand the evolution of the climate crisis, we’re going to have to look deeper at the story behind the science; who commissioned what, why, when, and how was it received? This is a new perspective on the climate crisis, exploring deep back-stories, fascinating characters and asking the crucial question: how can we harness the ingenuity and intelligence that has driven the history of climate change research to create a more sustainable and bearable future for humanity?

Look out for more events on this theme coming up in our Regenerative Futures programme this autumn

 

Related events

  • How to thrive in uncertain times

    Public talks

    RSA House and YouTube

    Can creativity survive in an AI-driven world? Margaret Heffernan explores how our obsession with stability and 'solutions' - now amplified by artificial intelligence - is not only futile but potentially destructive.

  • How a fairer world could save the planet

    Public talks

    RSA House and YouTube

    Join us to explore how social justice holds the key to environmental sustainability. Tony Juniper and Mya-Rose Craig bring together two powerful perspectives on the interconnectedness of equity and the environment.

  • Patron's Lecture: why social capital matters

    Public talks

    RSA House and YouTube

    In the 2025 RSA Patron’s Lecture, world-renowned political scientist Robert Putnam explores the vital role of social connections for economic mobility, civic engagement, and community wellbeing.