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Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the second in a series of conversations at the Martin School is organising this term,

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exploring some of the ways that the pandemic has or may may change our thinking

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about the major issues facing humanity before introducing today's guests.

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Let me welcome our virtual audience and encourage you to ask questions.

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If you look at the bottom of your screen on the right, there's a button that you can press to ask a question.

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And there is also the facility to vote.

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What questions that you want me to put to the speaker and please do that is very helpful for me in deciding which question to ask.

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So it's an obvious pleasure to welcome today's guest.

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Martin Rees Lord Rees, who's professor of astronomy and cosmology at the University of Cambridge, over a long career.

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Martin has made extraordinary contributions to many areas of astronomy and cosmology,

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and it's received a very large number of prises as prises and honours.

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He's been president for the Royal Society and was made a life partner here in 2005 and is very active in science policy in the UK.

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UK Parliament's Upper Chamber Martinez astronomer royal position held by Flamsteed

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highly masculine and I believe you have had an asteroid named after you,

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if that's correct.

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Martin has been a long friend of the Martin School here in Oxford and has sat on our advisory council right since the foundation of the school.

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In addition to his fundamental science, Martin writes wonderful books for non-technical audience and off the internet, so books.

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Martin has written some are about cosmology, and I'm particularly fond of a book, which I think is about 10 years ago,

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just six numbers, which gives a fabulous insight into the summer and into some of the magic of modern astrophysics.

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But especially in recent years, for example, in this in his last book On The Future,

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Martin has written a lot on the major challenges facing humanity in the current st century,

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and he has established at Cambridge the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.

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And we thus hugely fortunate have Martin here today to explore some of these essential risks and whether the world having experienced a major,

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if not existential crisis in the pandemic is better off or worse off in position in addressing them.

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Martin, could we talk a bit about some of the technological risks?

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And in your writing, you've talked about two categories.

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One is sort of around AI and robotics and nano, and the other is around bioterrorism and biological risks.

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Could you tell us a little bit about what concerns you most in those areas? Yes.

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I think the point is that those are both areas where equipment which is widely available,

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and it's logical that in the case of fire risks and the computer terminals can be used by

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error or by design to cause and effect which could be serious and even cascade globally.

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It's not like nuclear, which, of course, is the first major technological threat,

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and it's still one that looms over us because you can't build a nuclear bomb without massive

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special purpose equipment and it's easy to monitor worldwide when that's happening.

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But I think we do need to worry as we are getting more and more dependent, for instance,

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on the internet and everything like that on possibilities of either breakdowns or even worse of intentional cyber attacks on it.

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And in the case of a fire, as we get to that later when we talk about COVID 19, of course,

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one thing which is even more scary if it becomes possible for individuals or small groups to engineer viruses or give them intentionally,

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and that will be even worse than the natural pandemics we are confronting now.

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So with the issues around cyber threats, and I do you see them as existential risks or just as major systemic risks to infrastructure.

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So the latter, I think, is an existential risk and something that is going to wipe us all out.

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I think there are very few of those, so they are likely to happen because life is all about.

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But the way I look at this, and I think the possibility of these risks is going to give us a bumpy ride through the century.

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We're going to get more and more easy for individuals or small groups to have an effect that cascades very widely,

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as I put it in my book, The Global Village Idiots, but they will now have a global role.

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And that's the problem.

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And that's why I think we're already we know that cyber attacks can cause disruption, and we know that it can be other just failures,

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mechanical failures, electrical failures which make the grid go down in the country and cause other effects which can disrupt our lives.

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So it depends on technology. So I think we're getting more vulnerable and therefore there's more that can go wrong.

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And worse than that, cyber instance is where things can go wrong by evil intent as well as failure.

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And is there an analogy with the global financial system?

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And if we saw what happened in 2008 and the degree to which there was contagion

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and spread of a problem with the sort of infrastructure that we have now?

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Well, that's a good example to tell is that any problem in one part of the world is going globally,

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whether it's a financial system, the internet or change of delivery for manufacturing or air travel and all the rest.

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So we are so interconnected. And you know, Geidam of Classic will collapse where there could be a collapse of civilisation, one continent.

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And now it would not be possible to have such collapse of one continent without it going global, which was so interconnected.

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And so that's something which is new about this century and makes us more vulnerable.

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And also, of course, let's take the electric grid and its relationship with Israel in London or some other area.

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Then the lights, we are the least of our problems because a complete breakdown computer system.

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In fact, I quote in my book a report from the American Department Defence,

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which talks about the effect of a breakdown in the electricity grid in the eastern United States caused by some cyber attack.

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And it says that if they knew where the attacker came from, then it would merit a nuclear response.

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So that's why it's scary. And so I do feel that we will all suffer from the kind of breakdowns in our country's infrastructure.

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They're pretty routine in, say, India and Pakistan now.

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But of course, the for that reason, not quite so dependent on we are much more dependent on them.

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I'm just to leave the Earth briefly again, our solar system,

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solar storms and solar flares with a capacity to disrupt electrical grids and electrical supplies.

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Are they something that concern you? Yes, they're quite serious. In fact, they are natural.

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But of course, they're natural.

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They had no effect until we had electricity, whereas they do have effects on the producing surges in the electric grid.

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And of course, they could affect the workings of satellites, and they're very dependent on the tubes, the satnav and timing and all that.

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And so we are newly vulnerable to the closest race.

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So exploring a different category of threat sort of very severe, possibly existential,

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the sort of nexus of threats around our demands on the environment, which depend on our population size and our per capita consumption.

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What we're doing to climate, what we're doing to to water supplies and things on that that must be a major category of threat.

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Well, indeed, I think that said, the second class of threats are those which are caused by us collectively because the world population,

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it's doubled in the last 50 years. It's now seven point eight billion euros to nine billion by mid-century.

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And moreover, we are all more demanding of energy resources.

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And of course, we hope within the developing world they will indeed develop.

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But that's going to mean that they use more energy per capita,

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etc. So we do have a greater impact on the planet and this is doing two things, as you know, for me.

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One is affecting biodiversity and the other, of course, is leading to climate change.

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And this is, of course, as we all know, the very serious threat.

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But I think if you compare that with, say, COVID 19, it's like a slow motion.

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COVID 19 is an immediate threat, and the trouble is that things like climate change or slow motion.

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So we're in the position of the frog in the.

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Kind of water being heated, it doesn't realise what's happening until it's too late to escape.

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And that's the danger really of a lack of adequate response to something which

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is going to happen in decades and is already showing serious precursors.

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And also, I think we've got to bear in mind that the other kind of difference, as I addressed, they may be unfamiliar,

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but there's a good maxim due to make silver if the unfamiliar is not the same as the improbable.

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And I think although these things happen fairly rarely, even one occurrence, maybe too many.

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And we ought to prepare for the more. And in a bigger scale, that's true of climate and diversity preservation.

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Yes. An example of an unfamiliar threat.

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What would you what would you suggest in this in this line at the moment?

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Well, I think COVID 19 was unkind.

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Yes, but it should not have been unexpected really, because as we know, we've had influenza pandemics,

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we've had the virus pandemics, sales and mergers which didn't get the global traction, which COVID 19 was done.

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But this is a case where we should have been far more prepared than we were because in estimating estimates

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that the cost to the world of COVID 19 is going to be something of twenty five trillion dollars.

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Plus, of course, the loss of millions of lives.

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How likely was it taking note of sense of the pandemic like that was more unlikely than most for 50 years or something.

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This isn't some the insurance premium by both probability by impact.

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That means it would have been worth spending several hundred billion dollars in preparation for something like COVID 19.

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And of course, we were doing that,

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and it's understandable book is very hard to persuade governments to spend money on things which has never been addressed, immediate need.

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But I think one lesson we have learnt from COVID 19 is that we do need to think about how we should

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be more prepared for these events by the obvious preparations which we should have had COVID 19.

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And also, we've got to realise that's an important trade-off between two things.

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One is efficiency and the other's resilience and not be resilient.

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We've got to leave some slack in the system. You give two examples. It's not resiliency,

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although it's efficient supply chains around the world and not keeping any inventories or

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stocks because they're breaking one link in one chain can screw up the loss of manufacturing.

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So that's an example where it may be a false economy as it were to maximise efficiency.

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And another different example more relevant to COVID 19 is that it would be better if we had more intensive care beds,

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as I think they did routinely in Germany, this country said, was more prepared.

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So I think one thing we're going to learn from the pandemic is that we should be some slack

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in the system and be prepared to spend money in doing the kind of things that we needed,

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the protective clothing and all that sort of thing. So governments will happily spend very, very large amounts of money on defence.

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If one looks at, for example, the defence budget of the of the United States, it dwarfs that that's going into medical research.

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And much of that is predicated on potential ill defined threats in the in the future.

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Whereas other categories of threats which are still unfamiliar but exactly as you've just said,

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are more certain in many ways, it's far harder for governments to take action on.

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Well, that's a very good example, actually, because I believe it was the case that in 2009,

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the government stock up on vaccines for the first time ever actually came back, and some people berated the government for a waste of money.

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But of course, you have wasted you our insurance if your house doesn't burn down.

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And they were doing the right thing and we would be doing the right thing if we had better preparations for making vaccines.

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This and of course, as you say, in a sense,

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the whole of the Minister Defence Procurement Budget is in this category because

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we're having all these fighters and things which we hope you never have to use,

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and that's on the far larger financial scale that we're talking about here.

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A couple more details, one of the issues around how COVID has changed the world, just thinking about threats on.

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How concerned are you at the way that global politics is going, so it was only 15,

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20 years ago that we had there was a tacit assumption that the world was going inexorably towards a uniform liberal democracies.

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And now we've had waves of populism and we've had the reverse of democracy and in many countries.

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And of course, that's a paradox that some of the less democratic countries have found it easier to deal with the pandemic than more.

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How worried are you about sort of global political trends at the moment and our capacity to address the risks that you talk about?

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Well, I'm less worried somewhat after the American election results recently, obviously, but there is a more general concern.

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And I think in the country of populism,

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I think there is something which won't reverse so easily and that's the effect of social media and fake news and all that.

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If we go back. More than 20 years, and most people have most of their news via radio stations or the press.

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So it was filtered through professional journalists of some kind who in general filtered out or muffle the extremism.

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But what happens now is the opposite because on social media engines, extreme gets more clicks.

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That's something still more extreme. And so this is the tendency which is hollowing out moderate opinion and making it harder to get consensus.

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And I do worry about this as a downside of social media, which could be rather hard to reverse, in my opinion.

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It was aggravated, obviously by Trump, which is something anyway. And of course, as you say,

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it has been one of the things which has made it especially hard for our country and the U.S.

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to cope adequately with the recent pandemic as compared to what has happened in Taiwan,

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for instance. The the what's happened recently,

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both with some of the misinformation about COVID on social media and also the fury about

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the storming of the Capitol on January the 6th has brought some of these issues to a head.

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Are you optimistic that this may lead to movement in this area or do you think we'll just sort of go back

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to the status quo ante once the pandemic is over and we're back to more normal politics in the states?

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Well, I'm not. I do worry about the United States because of course, even though Trump lost the election, more than 70 million people voted for him.

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Still, more people than that carry guns routinely. So it's a very different social system from what they used to in northern Europe.

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And so I do worry about what's going to happen there.

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But I think this pandemic is going to make people aware of the need for collaboration.

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And I think going back to environment issues, we are, as you know,

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having important international conferences this year on climate in Glasgow and biodiversity in China.

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And I hope these will raise consciousness, that these are areas where the world does have to move together and.

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We need to get all the data, etc. and just quote something on the environment.

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I was on a conference call just this morning about space and small.

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Arrays of satellites now can monitor every day, every tree in the world.

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And get all this data, and this can be shared around the world and can check whether countries are conforming to pledges they've made for.

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Not cutting down forests or cutting CO2 to emissions and things like that,

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so I think technology is going to be very helpful in that sense in that it allows everyone to know what the data are.

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So one of the most extraordinary things about the pandemic is how science has come so much to the fore over the last year.

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As someone who's sort of taught what the R number is for 30 years,

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it's extraordinary that now everyone knows what that number is and largely gets it right.

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Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance are household name, so privatise additions before Christmas was entitled Happy with.

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It's fun. Overall, do you think that this will be what will cover things?

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Do you think this is going to be temporary and do you think it will have lasting effects?

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Will the lasting effects be positive that people see the value of science?

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Or could there be a a reaction against science?

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We see Chris and Patrick been called Professor Bloom Professor Doom and think.

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Well, I mean, I think we've got to say that those particular scientists and all the others under huge pressure have done a wonderful job,

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but not the way they preserve their integrity and made things as clear as they can.

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Emphasising, of course, that there are uncertainties and that you change your mind as the facts change,

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which has happened several times as we know this pandemic. I think some scientists shouldn't be too worried about their prestige.

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I mean, scientists often bemoan the fact that the public doesn't know any science and doesn't suspect science, etc. And I think that's unfair.

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And to respect first, when the opinion polls done of the extent to which particular professional groups are respected by the public scientists,

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at least academic scientists come out pretty high.

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Government scientists somewhat lower, but all way above politicians, journalists and estate agents and the rest of them so respected.

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They may be below DP's, maybe below clergymen, but they're still pretty high.

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That's one thing. And also, I think it's a bit unfair to bemoan the public's ignorance of science.

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I mean, obviously, as you say, they've learnt about the unknown number and things like that in the last few months.

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But there is a lot of interest in science and biodiversity,

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etc. It's something which does concern huge numbers of people in this world and indeed in astronomy.

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I mean, I'm. They surprised at the large number of people who are fascinated by dinosaurs and space.

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Nothing could be more relevant, whether they like dinosaurs, but young kids especially approximated by that.

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And I think this is a good thing and I think scientists shouldn't bemoan.

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The fact that the public is not an expert in science anymore,

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that they should bemoan the fact that many people in the public don't know the history

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of their country and probably couldn't find a South Korea or Libya on the map.

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I think if you want to have an informed citizenry, then citizens have to have a feel for science,

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obviously because of a fraction of the issues that come up on energy, health and the etc. have a scientific component.

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But also one can't address these issues properly unless one knows a bit about history and politics.

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And that's why one should bemoan the ignorance in those areas and not particularly in scientists societies.

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I think mode too much because there's as much interest in what they do as there is in any other academic area.

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And I see that point. In addition to the sort of facts and I completely agree that we're silly if we sort of

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bemoaned that the public don't know the facts about science and the things that we love.

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But but what about the issues about some of the the methodologies of science and things in the interpretation of quantitative data?

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And I guess one of the things that's encouraged me in the last year is that people are very different type of people.

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The journalist Tim Harford, for example, your colleague at Cambridge,

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they did speak a whole to have been given a platform to explain some really quite complex ideas to a general audience.

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And those are really transferable skills that help you interpret the data about the pandemic but help you do many other things.

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It's not something you find encouraging is that the gang scientists and I think that should be a bigger part of the school education

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because one can't be an informed citizen unless one can look at the numbers and not be bamboozled by false claims about them.

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And that's why those people you mentioned are doing such a good job because they're important.

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But just going back to science, I think you've got to realise and of course,

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of balance and Richie and Mark Wolfe as a people who emphasises rightly that scientists are people who make the final decisions and offering advice,

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and the politicians who in these cases have to make decisions on behalf of all of us.

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They obviously do have to take into account the ethics and economics as well.

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And in those areas, scientists as citizens with no special expertise.

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I think it's very important that decisions which are made by politicians should be

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made on the basis of the best possible understanding of the best available data.

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But that's not the only thing they have to consider. They have to consider the political context and the economic context.

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Will the rest of it? And as you say, people like Patrick Vallance and Matt Wolpert completely understand it.

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My worry that some people in our community take a rather simplistic linear view about how science fits into policy,

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and I do not appreciate quite how hard the job politicians do have in integrating all these different things.

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I agree, and also some scientists to generate a mystique about the scientific method.

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And then it seems to me that what we do when we do science,

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it's not very different from what a detective does or of other people sort of trying to assess evidence,

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etc. So mode of thinking, which been exemplified by what the experts have been doing in studying the coronavirus.

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There's nothing very special about them. It's just a way of assessing rational evidence, which would be entirely familiar to any such person.

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So scientists shouldn't be shouldn't say that there is something very special called the scientific method.

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Nor, of course, should they or academics regard themselves especially clever and intelligent, but no more so than any other professions.

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Do you think that the pandemic, which is really a challenge that almost by definition,

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requires a societal communitarian in a way response may have changed both the discourse and civil

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society and also the discussions amongst politicians about collective approaches to other challenges.

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I don't want to go over the sort of nuts and bolts of what happened over the last year,

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but we do see a sort of tension between people with a more libertarian view and people who are more comfortable with collective action.

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And do you think that is changing the mood music in a good way?

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Well, I mean, I think we are realising that many of the so-called libertarians have really had a damaging impact because in cases,

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they are wearing masks. For instance, if you wear a mask or or if you but you increase a danger for other people as

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well as they wear masks not to protect yourself and that they do that a bit,

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but for altruistic reasons to protect other people just as much.

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And so I think extreme libertarians who bridle at wearing a mask have been damaging about hopes

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that the attitudes of extreme libertarianism is discredited a bit in some other contexts as well.

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So that's good. But I think one thing which is this report is that we realised that more and more of the important questions.

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Can't be tackled by a single nation alone.

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And obviously, the pandemic can't, nor can climate work and energy supply and biodiversity and all these things.

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And so I think it's going to be the case that we are going to have to give up more

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of our sovereignty to international bodies of various kinds and maybe a new body,

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rather like Joe to monitor compliance with the Paris and Glasgow pledges to cut CO2 emissions, for instance.

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Major energy. We probably need some new international body to regulate the internet,

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etc. because no single nation can compete with these massive multinational conglomerates that control the internet.

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So in all of these contexts, national sovereignty doesn't amount to very much.

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You've got to think globally. And I think that's going to be something that will be more and more widely unionised.

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And another point, of course, is that no, that communication and travel and that's local.

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When this whole topic becomes more common again, a communications is then I think we do have to worry about the fact that,

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for instance, in Africa could just pretty desperate.

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They now know their fate. The one thing they do have is the internet, and so they know that they know the injustice of it.

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And I think any sort of inequality between regions.

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I'm going to be very dangerous and will lead to better land mass migration and wars and all the rest in a

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way that wouldn't have happened 200 years ago when the middle of Africa didn't know what my listings were.

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And I think this is perhaps digressing slightly, and I know that a Paul Collier in Oxford is a business question.

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We've got to really have something like a mega Marshall Plan, where the northern nations ensure that Africa doesn't fall behind because, as you know,

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it's sort of a rapidly growing population and we can't develop like the Asian

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tigers did by undercutting manufacturing costs because robots do some of that now,

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just go me some other way of ensuring that it doesn't go behind, because if not, then those are your problems.

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And so I think the northern nations need to ensure that Africa's economy develops and not just for altruistic reasons.

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Martin, thank you for mentioning Paul Collier, which gives me an opportunity to say that this time next week,

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we'll be having a conversation with Paul and John Kaye on the recent book about it.

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Is very good book, and it is very good to be several books on that sort of thing actually on the.

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The toxic nature of extreme inequality and all that.

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And I completely agree with you, but I'm perhaps a little less optimistic than you.

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Aren't we seeing at the moment it becoming harder for countries to pool sovereignty?

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I certainly don't want to get into discussion on Brexit, but we have traded of sovereignty for trade advantage and see in the number of countries.

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And even Biden is, if you compare Biden with Obama or Clinton is talking about a disconnected America.

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Nowhere near as disconnected the US as Trump.

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Are you more optimistic because the pandemic may make us think about the importance of sharing sovereignty?

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That's the extent that we could do it directly, but of course, it's the major Brexit.

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But once I mean, one of the reasons why I was the leader was that given that we can't rely on

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America in the way that one did 20 years ago and we have China and Russia,

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this is the last.

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The least opportune time to weaken the coherence of Europe as a liberal democracy, and indeed I would go further and say that my politics,

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I think we in this country should try and learn more from Finland and Denmark and less than the United States to be united political.

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I think the main problem the government is allowing too much the United States,

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and we do far better with a higher tax regime, greater equality as is exemplified by the Scandinavian countries.

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I'm going to get to questions in about five minutes,

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so just please do vote for questions you would like me to ask Martin and add some yourself before doing that.

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If I could ask a couple of sort of more specific biological hazard questions.

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So in your book, you write extensively and persuasively about the dangers from bioterrorism and especially garage biotechnology,

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as well as the risks of modifying influenza virus and things like that such that we, we know and again haven't gone through the pandemic.

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Do you think that that will will raise the profile of what perhaps a little bit

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of a Cinderella issue compared with some of the other things we've talked about? Well, I mean, of course, I'm not an expert at all,

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but I do know that the influenza virus could be tweaked even 10 years ago to make it more virulent, more transmissible.

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And the same thing may happen with other viruses. This can be done perhaps by small groups and by an increasing number.

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And I do worry very much about this.

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That's even more than I do about cyber, because as you know,

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there are international discussions into academy discussions about regulating all

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these new biological techniques and on grounds of prudence and on grounds of ethics.

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But my worry is that even if we all agree internationally what the regulations should be, that enforcing them.

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Is as hopeless as enforcing the drug laws or the tax laws globally.

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And that's, I think, very scary given that one.

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But actually, it could be could be too many.

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So that's one of the things I've learnt most about how we can avoid these two bad actors were all of us needed to produce some,

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some bio disaster, how we can cope with them.

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And it's going to be a trade-off between three things we want to preserve our freedom, security and privacy.

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And in China, they may give up the privacy of security, but I don't know what would happen here,

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but I think we do have to accept far greater surveillance if we are going to avoid the

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possibility of things like that happening and similar arguments applied to cyber attacks.

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Mm-Hmm. Let me ask, this is a slightly more parochial question in the sense of us working in universities.

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But if you look at the successes and failures of not only this country, but at other high income countries response to the pandemic,

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then an area that's been really has worked well is the science response.

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Whether it's the big studies or potential therapies, whether it's the vaccines here and in in Germany,

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for example, and whether it's some of the the epidemiological modelling.

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And I guess this goes back to a point you make right at the beginning about resilience that we had some we didn't

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really think about some of the research groups we had as being sort of a national capability in terms of resilience.

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But they were and they were able to really get going once the once the pandemic started.

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Do you think the going thinking back to when you were presence across society in arguing so strongly for more money going into research?

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Do you think that's going to make the argument of of Adrian Smith, the current president, easier to make?

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Well, I would hope so. I think this is a case where we have benefited hugely from the very strong research in these particular areas.

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And I think it's very important to bear in mind that in this country,

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one of the big assets we have is in our research into practically everyone says this.

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And the reason is that this.

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Whose expertise that can be drawn on when it's needed, particularly to do.

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And also, of course, for the economy. And you know that people get for if we don't get smarter as it were and we've got two advances.

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In fact, there's one heresy, which I think people say the key thing is to take the ideas of developing labs and then develop them.

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But of course, even the best of times was discovered in the UK is going to be five or 10 percent of these discoveries.

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And so the important reason why we want strong universities, which are to specialise is still we have people who can be in the invisible college,

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in all subjects all over the world and can know what's going on.

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Anywhere in the world, and it's a clever idea they can run with it, so I would hope that British start-ups won't be just using ideas invented here,

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but will be taking advantage of the ideas that emerge all over the world and have a discerning eye to pick out the good ones.

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So and also, of course, in universities, we and the Americans have the still university concept.

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The Germans eventually, but they don't have it so much of having teaching and research together.

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And that's because an equally important part of the output of a university is,

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of course, that the highly educated students and the better educated they are.

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Then again, the better for the prosperity of this country.

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That's a platitude on a global scale. Thank you.

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Martin, I'm going to go to some questions and I'm just going to read out the first one, which has 10 votes.

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It's from Daniel Scharf. If, as the PM has said, climate change represents a greater threat than the pandemic should he set up regular No.

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10 briefings, so have ministers flanked by ecologists, meteorologists, behavioural economists,

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sociologists, psychologists, etc. and I go and address questions from the public NGOs and the press.

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Well, I mean, I think it's it's a slow motion process, isn't it?

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I think that's that's the problem that the pandemic happened fast enough and is so scary that everyone wanted the news every day.

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The trouble with climate policy is, of course, that it is long term.

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You've got to be thinking about the mitigation of the effects of climate change and adaptation on the time scale of up to 50 years.

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And I think we want to make sure that this is hardcoded within government.

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But I don't think the public is going to be confused by briefings.

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Just like to watch trees growing all the time, it's too slow. And so these things are important.

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But so I think we've got to prioritise when this is a problem and to say something more about climate change.

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I think it's true that the public perception of the public rating of the importance of climate change has risen tremendously.

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And this is partly the effect of signs, but it's more the effect of charismatic figures.

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I think we both know people who have been scientific advisers in government, and we know they're frustrated.

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There's something like COVID 19.

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They feel that they don't get much traction because they're always more urgent issues and the politicians care about the short term and the parochial.

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But let me give you two examples.

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The papal encyclical in 2015, which was the input which had very little effect because the pope is a standing ovation of the UN.

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He's got a billion followers in Latin America, Africa and East Asia,

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and that had a big effect in using the consensus at the Paris conference because he has his billion followers and our secular pope.

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Rutenberg has done his bit too, especially in the context of biodiversity and tactics in the ocean.

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I mean, the recent BBC programmes events are going on now are, of course, very important.

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But I think Mr Goh, not the most enlightened about politicians,

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would not have used any of his political capital on legislation to reduce the use of plastics.

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Had it not been for the scene in Blue Planet to showing the albatross of the nest and coughing up plastics which Young must have done for nourishment,

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that's an iconic picture. Rather like the polar bear in the melting ice was for the climate campaign.

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And so I think if politicians know the public cares, then they will take these long term decisions.

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And that's why it's very important that those members of the Santa community who are good at

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this and those who they can enlist because they better should be banging on about these issues,

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because only then will voters care and politicians care.

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It is also a fascinating thing that government actually had legislation and plans for reducing marine plastic,

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which they've been considering for some years,

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and it was a stimulus so that single television programme that gave them the sort of window and the opportunity.

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And I think it's a lesson for all of us interested in science and policy to have many plans ready to go and when the window of opportunity exists,

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time to encourage the charismatic figures and encourage young people to demonstrate and all these things.

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Because if these things are imperfect politicians in boxes and in the press, then they will rise on your agenda.

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And Marcus Rashford, raising the profile of urban food poverty is another local example.

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Let me read out another one, and this is from Max Nugent.

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In 2019, the Global Health Survey ranked the UK second in the world in pandemic preparedness, and the US was first.

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And this was above China, Germany and New Zealand, and we now have the highest death toll in Europe.

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Is it more important to have decisive and ineffective leaders in the crisis than have a level high level of preparedness?

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Well, of course, the decisive leaders are crucial and of course, the willingness of the public to accept strict lockdowns,

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etc. But I think I would contest the statement that we were well prepared.

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If you look at the national risk register, we were prepared for a influenza pandemic that was put behind us.

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But if you look at the end of 2017 published version of this, that.

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Epidemic X, no pandemic was not ready to tie at all kill thousand people,

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and so we were not prepared for the distinctive features of the corona virus,

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namely the need for huge amounts of protective clothing and the fact that it might be very difficult to develop a vaccine,

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unlike the flu, etc. So I think we were not prepared in the way we should have been.

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But of course, it's the political decisions and the willingness of the public to accept regulations, which is also crucial,

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and we weren't prepared despite having wakeup calls with nurses and staff and the lot in the last 20 years.

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That's, of course, one reason why the East Asian countries will forget. And thank you, we have a couple more questions that are sort of on this topic,

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so I hope we can talk about the need for legislation on climate change, how important issues will be choosing the right leaders.

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And so I guess that's a how important is the legislation on climate change more generally

388
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on some of the issues that we've been talked about that we've talked about then?

389
00:46:45,090 --> 00:46:51,720
One can approach it in different ways. One can regulate. One can legislate. One can try and have incentives within the market.

390
00:46:51,720 --> 00:46:59,880
Or one can try and ask consumers to drive change by, for example, picking low carbon food and things.

391
00:46:59,880 --> 00:47:01,740
I know it's a terribly broad question,

392
00:47:01,740 --> 00:47:12,480
but just in that sort of spectrum of from government action through incentives through allowing consumers to make the change.

393
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:22,380
Do you have sort of a broad feeling about what works best and whether we have the balance right at the moment and forgive the terribly broad question?

394
00:47:22,380 --> 00:47:30,180
Well, of course, it's very hard to persuade people in their interest of long term benefits to.

395
00:47:30,180 --> 00:47:37,200
Give up things they like doing now, but let me say what I think the win win situation win win policy is the climate change,

396
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:47,640
and that's to bear in mind that we in this country produce between one or two percent of the world's CO2 emissions.

397
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:54,230
So even if we reach our 2050 targets, that's making only one or two percent difference the world,

398
00:47:54,230 --> 00:47:59,670
if we can aspire to having much more than one or two percent of the world's clever ideas and innovations.

399
00:47:59,670 --> 00:48:06,300
So I think what we ought to do is to focus on R&D effort.

400
00:48:06,300 --> 00:48:11,700
The government supported part of it on clean energy batteries,

401
00:48:11,700 --> 00:48:19,230
smart grids and all these things so that we can make it more efficient and bring the cost down so that,

402
00:48:19,230 --> 00:48:31,250
for instance, India, where they need a per capita energy supply more than now, we don't.

403
00:48:31,250 --> 00:48:37,550
They need more of their population growing additional for Africa if we can help them.

404
00:48:37,550 --> 00:48:47,810
To defraud, directed to clean energy, just to save leapfrog directly to orphans and never have landlines, then we will help them.

405
00:48:47,810 --> 00:48:49,100
We do this by collaboration.

406
00:48:49,100 --> 00:49:00,950
And of course, we can then do far more in reducing the world's CO2 emissions than the one or two percent reduction achieved by just cruising around.

407
00:49:00,950 --> 00:49:09,950
So if we can help India to develop without needing to increase its contribution to CO2 emissions, we'd be making a good deal.

408
00:49:09,950 --> 00:49:17,390
And it's hard to think of a more inspiring go for young engineers than to provide an affordable energy,

409
00:49:17,390 --> 00:49:24,590
not just for ourselves which are developing world. So that's that's my Win-Win situation, I think to prioritise that.

410
00:49:24,590 --> 00:49:37,820
Just as to your subject, we have expertise in food science and plant science and all that and feeding the world in 2050.

411
00:49:37,820 --> 00:49:46,220
Preserving biodiversity is another area where expertise is needed and what we

412
00:49:46,220 --> 00:49:52,830
can do in those areas as they scrum can make a great difference in the world.

413
00:49:52,830 --> 00:50:01,670
So I think those are these two really important areas where the UK, through its academic strength,

414
00:50:01,670 --> 00:50:06,890
which we talked about earlier, could really make a disproportionate difference.

415
00:50:06,890 --> 00:50:16,160
I absolutely agree with you. Let me ask this question are passed with with your legislator hat on rather than a science hat.

416
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:23,780
What concrete steps could we take to convince governments to invest more in resilience?

417
00:50:23,780 --> 00:50:30,930
There. Well, I think I think there are ways I'm sure of the funding, the health service,

418
00:50:30,930 --> 00:50:37,480
Spencer Overton obviously would allow them to a more slack in the hospital system.

419
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:47,250
That's one thing. And perhaps there could be some system to ensure that the manufacturing companies keep inventories, et cetera.

420
00:50:47,250 --> 00:50:58,560
And I think. Mainly to make these industries under less pressure and also to recognise the value of the public sector because the

421
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:08,090
one thing we've seen in the pandemic is that the public sector has done better than certain private contractors have.

422
00:51:08,090 --> 00:51:18,770
That may not be your question, but I think those are lessons you can learn and can then think not just about the next pandemic,

423
00:51:18,770 --> 00:51:25,880
but about dealing with these other crises which are less imminent but are more important the long run.

424
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:43,040
Thank you, that question was from rock paper. And Cooper asked the question about how automation, mechanisation and AI and how it may affect jobs,

425
00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:48,440
and so they worry that this will hollow out the middle classes.

426
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:58,460
And if I extend the question a little bit, then you will get a small fraction of the population, be able to make a lot of money.

427
00:51:58,460 --> 00:52:03,080
So the returns on capital will get so much greater than the returns on labour.

428
00:52:03,080 --> 00:52:07,670
How much expansion? Some of the economic things we are talking around inequality.

429
00:52:07,670 --> 00:52:12,320
How much does that worry you and how much do we in the science community?

430
00:52:12,320 --> 00:52:17,960
Take some responsibility for addressing this issue.

431
00:52:17,960 --> 00:52:27,200
Well, it's certainly true that it's going to be a redeployment of labour this needed in that it's not just blue collar jobs.

432
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:34,400
Is it going to be replaced into gardening and it's coming through rather hard to mechanised?

433
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:48,990
But of course, many professional jobs are going to be, if not supplemented by machines of accountancy, legal work and medicine as well.

434
00:52:48,990 --> 00:52:55,820
And that's great. But I think the simple answer question is that clearly we need the redistribution and this

435
00:52:55,820 --> 00:53:02,480
is going to be achieved by proper taxation of the big companies that own the robots.

436
00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:09,180
And of course, if you said earlier, that's impeded by the fact that multinational companies to get around the rules.

437
00:53:09,180 --> 00:53:14,480
But I think having done that, this should be used.

438
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:20,540
This money should be used to create a far larger number of.

439
00:53:20,540 --> 00:53:27,440
Dignified, properly paid jobs in areas where the human element is crucial,

440
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:34,340
particularly carers, the old people now in immensely short supply and teaching assistants,

441
00:53:34,340 --> 00:53:42,110
and all the other key people to be recognised in the pandemic as being crucial to us and appreciated more than they were in the past.

442
00:53:42,110 --> 00:53:46,730
So I think there's a huge demand for more people in those professions.

443
00:53:46,730 --> 00:53:58,460
And of course, if those people now in mind numbing jobs in the Amazon warehouses or in.

444
00:53:58,460 --> 00:54:08,000
The cool centres, for instance, if they're replaced by machines and those people have dignified jobs,

445
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:13,100
looking after young and old, they're not Win-Win. And so this again,

446
00:54:13,100 --> 00:54:21,020
is where we've got to learn that the mantra of a low tax economy is not the way to happiness because of the

447
00:54:21,020 --> 00:54:28,850
Scandinavian way of having a proper welfare state where there are plenty of people to do these jobs as carers,

448
00:54:28,850 --> 00:54:36,410
custodians, etc. and quoting David Goodhart, who I know we've both read them more parity of esteem for head, heart and hand jobs.

449
00:54:36,410 --> 00:54:43,550
That's ridiculous. So I'm going to finish with a question.

450
00:54:43,550 --> 00:54:56,060
I can't resist doing so. And this is from Olli Steadman and I asked, how can we address risk by by picking careers that are future proof?

451
00:54:56,060 --> 00:55:03,050
And he gives some examples i policymakers, gene tailoring ethics, pandemic crisis management.

452
00:55:03,050 --> 00:55:13,160
What jobs do we need more of? And then, he says, apart from astronomers smiley face, I'm already one of those.

453
00:55:13,160 --> 00:55:19,850
Well, I mean, I think the answer I would give is that a many jobs are changing so fast.

454
00:55:19,850 --> 00:55:23,990
That's the case for lifelong education is strengthening.

455
00:55:23,990 --> 00:55:30,500
And one good development now is just more public support for the idea that instead of everyone spending three

456
00:55:30,500 --> 00:55:39,050
years at the university between the age of 18 and twenty one might be better to give people three years of study,

457
00:55:39,050 --> 00:55:43,620
which they could be spread anywhere through their lives because they don't have to do a lot and change their careers.

458
00:55:43,620 --> 00:55:51,920
So I think that might be beneficial as to where we are going to need the extra jobs.

459
00:55:51,920 --> 00:56:01,190
Then, of course, we can't predict far ahead to be some no bigger need for astronomers than it is now, of course.

460
00:56:01,190 --> 00:56:13,370
But there'll be more there'll be more chance actually, for amateur scientists, I think as more people do acquire wealth,

461
00:56:13,370 --> 00:56:21,890
then I think we may go back to a situation when there are more people who were like Lord Reilly and Darwin in the 19th century,

462
00:56:21,890 --> 00:56:29,720
where the best science is done by people like that. And of course, there are some people in centuries like Lovelock,

463
00:56:29,720 --> 00:56:41,870
etc. who both independently and I think the rise of the independent scientist may be something which is more attractive.

464
00:56:41,870 --> 00:56:48,470
And of course, some people may prefer to take that route rather than spend the whole time teaching in university.

465
00:56:48,470 --> 00:56:53,120
I think this is going to be a change in higher education is going to be changed,

466
00:56:53,120 --> 00:57:05,960
and the pandemic and the balance between distance learning and real lectures is going to change much faster than it would have done otherwise.

467
00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:09,890
And a question which I know you get asked a lot as a stone.

468
00:57:09,890 --> 00:57:18,020
What role the future of humanity? Is it on Mars? No, it isn't.

469
00:57:18,020 --> 00:57:26,090
Of course, as an astronomer, I get asked, but if I want to be left alone in a plane or somewhere,

470
00:57:26,090 --> 00:57:34,490
I say a mathematician, but if I say I'm an astronomer, then I get asked these questions like, Oh, do aliens exist?

471
00:57:34,490 --> 00:57:43,190
ET cetera? No, no. Of course, there are some people who think that we will go to Mars.

472
00:57:43,190 --> 00:57:48,240
I personally don't think there's much of a case for.

473
00:57:48,240 --> 00:57:53,760
Human spaceflight at all is getting weaker with every advance in miniaturisation and robotics.

474
00:57:53,760 --> 00:58:02,870
So my take would be that human spaceflight would be done only as a sort of expensive spectator sport.

475
00:58:02,870 --> 00:58:09,770
Paid for by Messrs Musk and Bezos. And we should cheer them on.

476
00:58:09,770 --> 00:58:16,550
Good luck to them, and some of them may go to Mars and that would be fine.

477
00:58:16,550 --> 00:58:28,840
But it's a dangerous delusion to imagine, as Elon Musk does, and as my colleague Stephen Hawking did, that would be mass emigration tamales because.

478
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:39,580
Terraforming Mars is far, far harder than dealing with climate change here on Earth, and there's really no Planet B for all of you risk averse people.

479
00:58:39,580 --> 00:58:43,690
So let's cheer on people like Elon Musk, who says he wants to die on Mars,

480
00:58:43,690 --> 00:58:53,020
but also impacts if you want to follow him and let's keep the Earth as a unique place for which we are adopted.

481
00:58:53,020 --> 00:58:57,890
But of course, one reason to cheer on these people is that.

482
00:58:57,890 --> 00:59:00,950
Although we're going to regulate all these new technologies,

483
00:59:00,950 --> 00:59:09,770
cyborg technology and genetic modification on Earth for conventional and ethical reasons, those guys on Mars will be away with the regulators.

484
00:59:09,770 --> 00:59:21,320
They'd be in a very hostile climate. So good luck to them. If you want to adopt their progeny to live in a alien and hostile world,

485
00:59:21,320 --> 00:59:26,930
and so if there's going to be any sort of host humans, well, not by natural selection,

486
00:59:26,930 --> 00:59:33,710
but by a sort of second intelligent design, they will, I think, start on Mars, where there's the incentive and defeat of regulation.

487
00:59:33,710 --> 00:59:41,570
Well, the here on Earth. I would love to go on talking for another couple of hours, but I'm afraid we have to stop there just before thanking you.

488
00:59:41,570 --> 00:59:53,420
Could I just say that, as I mentioned beforehand, the next in the series is Paul Collier and John Kay talking about economic issues going ahead?

489
00:59:53,420 --> 00:59:56,870
Martin, I want to thank you for two things.

490
00:59:56,870 --> 01:00:05,360
First of all, it's a pleasure to observe this in public for everything you've done to help the Oxford Martin School over the last 50 years.

491
01:00:05,360 --> 01:00:07,460
And I know Lillian Martin, who I think is on the call,

492
01:00:07,460 --> 01:00:16,820
would join me in thanking you so much for what you've done and thank you very much for the such a wonderful conversation this afternoon.

493
01:00:16,820 --> 01:00:23,930
I've really enjoyed it. And just looking at the the messages in the chat, and I think a lot of other people have done this as well.

494
01:00:23,930 --> 01:00:27,119
So thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Charles and Virginia.