Welcome to the Green Alliance podcast.

We're the charity and think tank that is all about achieving ambitious leadership for the environment.

I'm Gwen Buck, a senior policy advisor here at Green Alliance.

Now we all know that looking back at the tales from history can help us understand our present and plan for our future. So what can we learn from the history of our biggest experiment, the history of the climate crisis?

It was Unique Newton Foot, an American scientist and women's rights campaigner living in New York

who first warned the world that an atmosphere heavy with carbon dioxideside could send temperatures here on earth soaring.

This was back in 1856. That's where the story of our warming climate starts, and where today's guest,

Dr Alice Bell, starts her new book, Our Biggest Experiment, a History of the Climate Crisis.

People talk about climate change as our moon shots. That's ridiculous.

Putting a man on the moon is tidy compared to what we have to do for climate change.

You know, humanity has never done anything like this at all. And we also have to do this while tackling a degree or so's global warming. Now that is huge. Our biggest experiment brings

to life the stories of the real people who help build our modern understanding of climate change.

Whilst it covers the science, it also tells a parallel story of our energy system, from whale oil to kerosene and beyond,

and how politics, spin and disinformation have all played a part in where we are today.

As well as being an author, Alice is a climate change campaigner and co-runs

the climate change charity possible. Here she engages communities in climate action, from tree

planting to putting heat pumps in urban parks and even using nail salons to talk about climate

change research. She's even been campaigning for a wind turbine emoji. So I'm delighted to have her joined today's podcast.

Welcome, Dr. Alice Bell.

Hi. Yeah, thanks.

And find me on.

For me, when I started reading the book, one of the things I was really interested in,

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