The Land & Climate Podcast

Environmental journalist Edward Struzik returns to the Land and Climate Podcast to discuss his latest book, Animal Diaspora: Decoding Ice Age Mysteries to Reveal the Future of Migration. 
 
The book reconstructs migration patterns of animal populations from the last Ice Age, finding that millions of mammoths, reindeer, and early humans moved into the Americas after rapid periods of warming and cooling temperatures displaced them from their habitats. 
 
In conversation with Bertie, Edward Struzik gives insightful examples of how temperature shocks often lead to extinction, such as rising sea levels that cut off land access and stopped migration around 11,000 to 13,000 years ago.
 
“Warming after the last ice age resulted in two-thirds of the large mammals in North America going extinct - very similar to what is taking place now.”
 
Listen to Bertie and Edward discuss parallels between the last mass extinction and the present day, and what the Ice Age can reveal about the current climate crisis. 
Preorder Animal Diaspora from Princeton University Press by clicking here. 
Related episodes: 
What is the history of extinction? - with Sadiah Qureshi
Meltdown: is it too late for the Arctic? - with Mia Bennett
How are assumptions around science and migration undermining climate policy? - with Sonia Shah
How urgent is the need to restore our peatlands? - with Edward Struzik
Further reading: 
'With Sea Ice Melting, Killer Whales Are Moving Into the Arctic', Yale E360, 2025
'The cryosphere is nearing irreversible tipping points – and the world is not prepared', Land and Climate Review, 2025
'Remembering dreams of a green peace', Land and Climate Review, 2025
'Rain Comes to the Arctic, With a Cascade of Troubling Changes', Yale E360, 2024
'How Tensions With Russia Are Jeopardizing Key Arctic Research', Yale E360, 2023
'Swamplands: Edward Struzik’s bog book is a call for cultural change', Land and Climate Review, 2021
'Is Warming Bringing a Wave of New Diseases to Arctic Wildlife?', Yale E360, 2018
'How a Wayward Arctic Current Could Cool the Climate in Europe', Yale E360, 2017
Send us Fan Mail
Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

Content advisory: this episode describes events that listeners may find distressing.
Five years ago, in the small coastal town of Palma, Mozambique, 500 fighters from the ISIS-affiliated al-Shabab group stormed a community living and working beside a multi-billion-dollar natural gas field part-owned by France's biggest company, TotalEnergies. As insurgents swept through Palma, they beheaded and shot men, women and children indiscriminately, among them construction workers contracted to build Total's gas plant.  
British journalist Alex Perry spent almost two years investigating the massacre, and established the death toll among Palma's population was over 1,000 people. Perry’s reporting has since won a Polk Award and a True Story Award, and has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize.  
Alasdair chats to Perry about his new book, Blood Will Flow: The Murderous Business of Oil and Gas - now longlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year - which provides a full account of events in Palma and their aftermath.
TotalEnergies did not respond to a request for comment from The Land and Climate Podcast. The Land and Climate Podcast has not independently verified Alex Perry's account of events, and guests' views do not necessarily represent the editorial views of The Land and Climate Podcast. In November 2025, TotalEnergies rejected accusations of complicity in war crimes, torture, and enforced disappearances in Mozambique. Legal investigations are ongoing. See TotalEnergies' past statements on this issue at the links below: 
'Mozambique LNG: TotalEnergies welcomes the launch of official investigations in Mozambique', March 2025
'Mozambique LNG: Clarification by TotalEnergies', November 2025
'Chronology of exchanges between TotalEnergies and media about Mozambique LNG' 
Further reading: 
Blood Will Flow: The Murderous Business of Oil and Gas, by Alex Perry, 2026
The Elements of Power: A Story of War, Technology, and the Dirtiest Supply Chain on Earth by Nicholas Niarchos, 2026 
'Climate diplomacy must shift focus from markets to land rights', Land and Climate Review, 2025
'Cobalt mining kills. Who is sorting it out?', Land and Climate Review, 2023
'To stop fossil fuel finance, The Equator Principles must change', Land and Climate Review, 2021
My Traitor’s Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience by Rian Malan, 1990
Send us Fan Mail
Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

Colombia is one of the most unequal countries in the world regarding agriculture and land ownership. Violence in the Colombian countryside has often allowed corporate agriculture to displace land once held by small farmers, known as “campesinos”, and transform it into new frontiers for capital.
Jaskiran Kaur Chohan tells Alasdair that “armed conflict undermines the productive systems of campesinos, which reinforces the corporate food regime and the modernisation of agriculture”. They discuss how corporate food regimes take root in the aftermath, and how the country's smallholders can survive. 
Dr Kaur Chohan is a political ecologist at the University of Bristol, whose work focuses on rural communities in Colombia and the intersection of violence, conflict, and agriculture.
Further reading: 
'Violent conflict, capitalism and insurgent food sovereignty', The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2026
'Have monopolies broken agricultural markets?', The Land and Climate Podcast, 2025
'The corporate food regime in conflict zones: Armed violence and agriculture in the Zona de Reserva Campesina-Valle del Río Cimitarra, Colombia', Geoforum, 2024
'Sugar cane is eroding Colombian biodiversity', Land and Climate Review, 2024
'Tough Tradeoffs: Coca crops and agrarian alternatives in Colombia' , International Journal of Drug Policy, 2021
'Slow violence and corporate greening in the war on drugs in Colombia', International Affairs, 2021 
'Zonas de Reserva Campesina: ¿Estrategia de Desarrollo Regional y contra el Desplazamiento?', Mama Coca, 2020
'Grassroots masquerades: development, paramilitaries, and land laundering in Colombia', Geoforum, 2013
Broken Republic: Three Essays, Arundhati Roy, 2011
Send us Fan Mail
Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

With five and a half years of content, The Land and Climate Podcast has an overwhelmingly large back catalogue. We have always aimed to produce evergreen episodes, however, and many of our older interviews still have insights and relevance in 2026. 
This is why we are launching a new offering, alongside our usual programming, called 'In Review'. Alasdair and Bertie pick one topic per episode, playing highlights from our favourite interviews and discussing recent developments. 
First up: plastics. 
Following reports that the current draft of the much-delayed UN Plastics Treaty is even less ambitious than the one rejected by many nations last year, Bertie and Alasdair listen to interview excerpts about microplastics, false solutions to plastic waste, and industry lobbying around the Treaty negotiations. 
Featuring clips of science journalist Matt Simon, Punyathorn Jeungsmarn (Arm) from Environmental Justice Foundation, and Dr Rob Ralston from The University of Edinburgh. 
Listen to the original episodes: 
'Has the plastics industry co-opted the circular economy?' with Rob Ralston, 2026
'What if climate politics is about power, not carbon?' with Jessica Green, 2025
'Can the world regulate plastics?' with Punyathorn Jeungsmarn, 2025
'How badly have microplastics harmed ecosystems, climate, and human health?' with Matt Simon, 2022
Further reading: 
'Leaked memo shows how U.S. aims to weaken global limits on plastic pollution', Washington Post, August 2026
'UN plastic treaty is going backwards, experts say', The Guardian, August 2026
'The Global Plastics Treaty must include production reduction', Land and Climate Review, 2025
'There is so much to say about plastic pollution. Why are we not talking about it?', Land and Climate Review, 2023
A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies by Matt Simon, 2022
Send us Fan Mail
Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org

Solar and wind power is growing worldwide, but so is electricity consumption: as a result, renewables are often only added to the energy mix, rather than replacing fossil fuels. 
Reducing energy demand would make net zero more achievable, but it recieves far less attention than decarbonisation efforts. This may be due to a perception that managing energy demand would be politically unpopular, requiring governments to make radical interventions into people's lifestyles and spending. 
Oliver Broad, Senior Research Fellow at University College London, tells Alasdair that such fears are unfounded. His team's research found that the UK could reduce energy demand by 52% without new tech or overly disruptive societal change, and has worked with policymakers and public focus groups to demonstrate political acceptability. 
Further reading: 
'Policymakers and academics envision energy demand reductions beyond typical policies in the United Kingdom', Nature Energy, 2025
'Policymaker-led scenarios and public dialogue facilitate energy demand analysis for net-zero futures', Nature Energy, 2025
'Energy demand reduction options for meeting national zero-emission targets in the United Kingdom', Nature Energy, 2022
'Real people or "economic processing units"? The limited understanding of people's roles in energy and climate governance', Energy Research & Social Science, 2022
'A low energy demand scenario for meeting the 1.5 °C target and sustainable development goals without negative emission technologies', Nature Energy, 2018
'Invisible energy policies: A new agenda for energy demand reduction', Energy Policy, 2018
Send us Fan Mail
Find all our latest investigations, features and interviews at www.landclimate.org