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Today's guest is Sakari Säynäjoki, a doctoral researcher in Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences at the University of Helsinki who studies the interdependence between modern societies and fossil fuels. Sakari’s research revolves around how fossil fuels enable not only our material realities, but in addition, shape our culture, values and thinking. The consequence: the green transition is a cultural challenge at least as much as it is a technological one. Does the general understanding and discourse of climate change overlook this?

In this week’s episode of Inconvenient Chats we are joined by Fred Baker, a sustainability strategy consultant here in Denmark. We delve into our personal relationships with flying and the guilt that often accompanies it. Both of us have made attempts to reduce our carbon footprints when it comes to air travel. However, the struggle remains, and we find ourselves questioning whether we should feel guilty about taking flights at all.

Inconvenient Chats is back after a break! We are continuing in a new format with guests, and in this first episode we discuss geopolitics and climate with Benjamin Gibson, the senior manager for geopolitics at the Danish wind energy developer Ørsted. Is geopolitics taking all attention away from climate action, and do businesses just need to deprioritise the climate agenda in order to keep themselves afloat in a geopolitically volatile world?

Last episode for now! Have you ever wondered how much our society is built on oil and gas besides electricity? Will we actually ever manage to transition away from it? Is it possible for all our consumption of plastic, polyester, nylon, helium, and so much more that one does not think of immediately? It feels like an impossible mountain to climb. But we're here for the conversation, with a little bit of hope and a little bit of fear.

Unfortunately, this week the audio quality is a little wonky. Better next week! This week, we dive into one of the key scientific topics in climate change: attribution science. So basically, the science that helps us make statements such as "this flood has been made X times more likely and Y times more severe because of climate change". That's event attribution. But then, there's also trend attribution, source attribution and impact attribution. We get into all of this, how it works, and more.

If the moral argument of ‘doing the right thing’ is outdated, should we switch to differently appealing argumentation in the way we talk about climate change with some audiences? In this episode, we discuss ‘selfish’ arguments for climate action, i.e. effects on health and money.

This week is special. We say hello to our first (of hopefully many) interview guests.

And it’s a privilege that it’s Christian Sparrevohn. Christian lives and breathes sustainability. Having made it his life’s work not least by founding a leading sustainability consultancy in the Nordics. But also apart from that he is outspoken and listened to on the topics of sustainability, chairing the non-profit Rådet for Grøn Omstilling in Denmark

So who better to talk to about ‘individual responsibilities in fighting climate change' also known as ‘what can I even affect when it comes to climate change?’

We talk about...

Firstly, wars are horrible for countless reasons, carbon emissions are certainly not on top of the list of the terrible things that result from armed conflicts. Today, we try to zoom into the carbon emissions that come out of wars and leave the humanitarian aspects of them to proper experts in that field to discuss.

Did you know that emissions from the military are exempted from reporting? That leaves a huge gap in emission transparency that we do not even know about properly. So join us this week as we try to uncover the emissions coming from 1st order, 2nd...

Today, we pick up a topic recommendation from a listener: a carbon value added tax. This tax aims to encourage environmentally friendly consumer behaviors while generating financial flows for sustainable transitions. We unpack arguments for and against this policy, and explore its potential impact on society and the economy, e.g., recent studies have found significant benefits from a meat VAT for human health, societies’ economies, and the climate. Consumer-facing tax can be uncomfortable projects for politicians, and we ask what role that can play.

If you want to give feedback you can write to **kaisa@inconvenientchats.com** or **jan@inconvenientchats.com**.

If you have...

This time it's a full wizard episode. Geoengineering! What is it? What's the latest? And is it a viable alternative to climate mitigation or just science fiction to keep researchers busy? Also, why did a think-tank see the need to define some global catastrophic risks for, in particular, solar radiation management?

If you want to give feedback you can write to **kaisa@inconvenientchats.com** or **jan@inconvenientchats.com**.

If you have a topic on your mind that you have always wondered about, send us an e-mail with your topic recommendation and we’ll make it less inconvenient for all of you.