The Glass Bead Game Podcast: The Meaning of Climate Change

February 9, 2016


Standing up to Chevron image via Rainforest Action Network/flickr. Photo by Caroline Bennett. Creative Commons 2.0 license.

The Glass Bead Game podcast series creates a unique platform by which academic research can engage with an audience through people led narrative. Collecting the academic testimony of different disciplines from the international network of higher education, THE GLASS BEAD GAME aspires to appeal to a wide audience, challenge mainstream narratives and represent previously unheard voices.

The series title the ‘glass bead game’ is a nod to the classic book of the same name (Hesse 1943) in which the ‘game’ itself is played by creating new and subtle inferences between different academic disciplines.  By weaving together multiple conversations from academics and popular authorities the GBG podcast attempts to reconcile the disparate narratives that are inevitably produced by difficult subjects.  

‘Nothing is harder, yet nothing is more necessary, than to speak of certain things whose existence is neither demonstrable nor probable. The very fact that serious and conscientious men treat them as existing things brings them a step closer to existence and to the possibility of being born.’
(Herman Hesse – The Glass Bead Game, 1943)
 
In the first episode of THE GLASS BEAD GAME, presenter Will Hood explores the relationship between energy, ecology and economics, combining academic research with the anecdotal experience of indigenous groups on the front line of Canada’s environmental conflict.
 
·         Chief Billy Joe Laboucan Massimo – Chief of the Lubicon Cree Band, Little Buffalo, Alberta, Canada
·         David Attenborough – Broadcaster
·         Ernie Gambler – Indigenous Musician from Calling Lake, Alberta, Canada
·         Isabel Altamirano-Jimenez – Indigenous Scholar at the University of Alberta, Canada
·         J.B. Williams, Tsawout First Nation – Flood Story Narration (with music from Elder May Sam)
·         Makere Stewart-Harawira – Indigenous Scholar at the University of Alberta, Canada
·         Peter Newell – Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex
 
Presenter: Will Hood
 
With live coverage of the Cop21 climate summit (Paris Dec 2015) this episode explores the ethics of direct action as a way to make sense of climate change. An issue that divides the public and excites the media to what extents can it achieve meaningful political and social change?
 
·         Rex Weyler – founding member of Greenpeace 
·         David Attenborough – Broadcaster
·         Naomi Klein – Author (No logo, This Changes Everything) 
·         Peter Newell – Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex
·         Richard Tol – Climate Economist at the University of Sussex
·         Mike Hudema – Climate and energy activist with Green peace Canada 
·         Peter Newell – Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex.
 
Presenter: Will Hood

 


Tags: climate change, Direct Action, indigenous communities, Tar Sands

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