Code Red Podcast Series

Can movies help us understand climate change?

Film has a unique ability to engage and move people. It is an ideal medium to inform and motivate audiences around climate action. But can movies with an environmental theme also discourage audiences by lecturing them? 

The role of eco-cinema is explored in this episode, and the influences of movies such as An Inconvenient Truth and Don't Look Up! are discussed. 

Host: Dr Dave Robbins

Guests: Eco-cinema researcher Prof Pat Brereton, documentary expert Dr Eileen Culloty, and filmmaker Tom Burke, all of DCU School of Communications.

Listen to Episode 1

The humanities and social sciences have an important role to play in helping us find different ways to think and talk about climate change, and to engage with the defining issue of our times. In this podcast, we look at the differences between the humanities and the social sciences and speak to our guests about how their expertise and research in film studies and policy studies can help to bring about climate action.  

Host: Dr. Dave Robbins

Guests: 

- Prof Janet Walker, Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara

- Prof Pat Brereton, Professor in the School of Communications, DCU

- Dr Diarmuid Torney, Associate Professor in the School of Law and Government, DCU

Listen to Episode 2

The economic system, the energy system, the agriculture system - all of society's systems - need to change in response to climate breakdown. But just how difficult is it to change systems especially when they are supported by policy and the status quo. What will systems change look like and will it bring a better quality of life for all? These are some of the questions we tackle in this episode 'A Systems Response to Climate Change'.

Host: Dr Dave Robbins

Guests:

- Deirdre Duff, Head of Communications at Friends of the Earth

- Dr Patrick Bresnihan, author and lecturer in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University

Listen to Episode 3

In this episode of the Code Red climate podcast, we speak to three Irish nature writers about the recent boom in environmental literature.

What motivated them to write about the environment? Have our perceptions of what constitutes a wild landscape changed? What is the state of wild nature in Ireland?

Host: Dr. Dave Robbins

Guests:

- Mary Reynolds, reformed landscape designer, author of We Are The Ark: Returning Our Gardens to their True Nature with Acts of Restorative Kindness, and founder of the global rewilding movement We are the Ark

- Pádraic Fogarty, campaigns officer with the Irish Wildlife Trust, editor of Irish Wildlife magazine and author of Whittled Away: Ireland's Vanishing Nature

- Eoghan Daltun, sculptor, rewilder, and author of the best-selling An Irish Atlantic Rainforest: A Personal Journey into the Magic of Rewilding

In this episode, we explore corporate responses to the climate and biodiversity emergencies.  We examine the new reporting obligations that corporations are facing in terms of their sustainability, discuss greenwashing, debate the power of consumers, investors, and regulators in pressuring corporations to become more sustainable, and examine terms such as net zero and scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.

Host: Dr. Dave Robbins 

Guests: 

- Aoife Connaughton, Sustainability Strategy and Risk Lead for Deloitte Ireland

- Dr Fabiola Schneider, an Assistant Professor in DCU Business School with a research interest in Sustainable Finance

- Dr Aideen O'Dochartaigh, an Assistant Professor in DCU Business School with a research focus on Sustainability Accounting and Responsible Business

In this episode, we unpick the problems inherent in fast fashion and explore societal and regulatory responses to creating a more sustainable industry.  We examine the role of social media in driving consumption, ponder on the gender divide that makes preloved apparel more attractive to women and hear about new EU policies that will move the industry into the circular economy system. 

Host: Dr. Dave Robbins 

Guests:
- Gwen Cunningham, Lead for Circularity and Sustainability at NCAD and Co-founder of World Circular Textiles Day

- Laura de Barra, Author of “Gaff Goddess” and “Décor Galore”

- Mary Fleming, founder of Change Clothes Crumlin a community based clothing reuse hub in Dublin 12.

- Jo Linehan, Editor of Monthly Climate Supplement with Sunday Times, Sustainability Journalist and Host of Futurist Podcast

This podcast contains audio from a panel discussion that took place at IMMA’s Earth Rising Festival 2023. 

In this episode we are delighted to chat with Dan Saladino, journalist, broadcaster and author of 'Eating to Extinction'. His research examines how the current lack of food diversity is having a negative impact on the health of the planet, and on human health as well. He discusses the power of storytelling in helping us reform the broken food system of the present through the identification of successful food production and consumption stories from the past.

In this episode we also explore the role of art in mobilising climate action with Annie Fletcher, Director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and hear about the importance of right intention in the successful delivery of climate action projects with artist Amelia Caulfield.

Host: Dr. Dave Robbins

Guest Interviewer: Prof Pat Brereton, Professor Emeritus at DCU

Guests:

- Annie Fletcher, Director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA)

- Dan Saladino, journalist, writer and broadcaster. Author of ‘Eating to Extinction’

- Amelia Caulfield, multidisciplinary socially engaged artist from Kilkenny.

This episode was recorded at IMMA during the Earth Rising Festival 2023.

The advertising industry has been hugely effective in driving the growth that has contributed to the climate crisis we now face and is instrumental in creating unsustainable consumption. In this episode we meet the agents of change within the industry who seek to catalyse advertising's climate transition towards halving emissions by 2030. They call themselves Purpose Disruptors and their vision is an advertising industry transformed in service to a thriving future.

Host: Dr. Dave Robbins, School of Communications, DCU

Guest Interviewer: Pat Brereton, Professor Emeritus at DCU

Guests: 

- Laura Costello, Strategy Director of Purpose and Planet Projects in Think House, and Ireland lead for Purpose Disruptors

- Lisa Merrick Lawless, co-founder and director of Purpose Disruptors in UK

- Emer Fitzmaurice, Head of Planning at Folk Wunderman Thompson, and part of the Purpose Disruptors team in Ireland

- Thomas Geoghan, Strategy Director in PHD Media and team member of Purpose Disruptors Ireland

This episode was recorded at IMMA at the Earth Rising Festival 2023.

The media have often being criticisd for their role in climate change inaction, and their framing of the climate change discourse is regularly called into question. In this episode of Code Red we bring you a panel discussion which took place during the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s Earth Rising Festival where our host, Dr. David Robbins discussed the challenges that environmental journalists face when delivering climate change stories to the Irish public.

Host: Dr. Dave Robbins, School of Communications, DCU

Guests: 

- Caroline O' Doherty, Irish Independent

- Rosalind Skillen, Belfast Telegraph

- John Gibbons, Irish Examiner and Environmental Campaigner

This episode was recorded at IMMA at the Earth Rising Festival 2023.

This episode links eco-anxiety with the ocean by virtue of our two contributors whose work and play centers around the ocean. They are Linzi Hawkin, surfer and co-founder of Project Blue and fellow surfer Easkey Britton, an author and social scientist. In this thought provoking episode we hear about what eco-anxiety is and how to deal with it, the role of the ocean in our health and wellbeing, and what the ocean can teach us in today's often challenging world.

Host: Dr. Dave Robbins, School of Communications, DCU

Guest Interviewer: Pat Brereton, Professor Emeritus at DCU

Guests:

- Linzi Hawkin, Co-founder and Advocate at Project Blue, Surfer

- Easkey Britton, Author, Social Scientist and Surfer

This episode was recorded at IMMA at the Earth Rising Festival 2023.