In this ClimateGenn episode I am discussing the forecast 2026 El Niño event with Dr Jennifer Francis from the Woodwell Climate Research Centre in the US. I don’t mind admitting my heart sank a little when I heard the news of the forthcoming el Niño.

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The intensity of climate induced extremes that life on earth has been experiencing in recent years, coupled with the negligence and, in many cases, gross degenerate policymaking, has set us up to be woefully unprepared for the climate extremes we can expect later this year. Jennifer gives us the detail on this but always remember that this is a crisis that we are continuing to worsen by not cutting greenhouse gas emissions at the fastest rate possible.

In this end of year episode I am looking back on the main climate highlights of 2025 with Research Director at the Breakthrough National Centre For Climate Restoration, David Spratt. Links:David Spratt's own 2025 Climate Round-up:https://www.climatecodered.org/2025/12/climate-hot-takes-on-2025.html?m=1National Emergency Briefing Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@nebriefing/videosProf. Stefan Rahmstorf at ATLAS25- Our heating system is heading for shutdown, #AMOC – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKBTZ324COADr James Hansen at ATLAS25 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2abyXGvELIRafe Pomerance Discussing Overshoot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX6FzVd4kC0&t=596sVisit https://genn.cc for more information about the ClimateGenn podcast.Here we discuss some of the key aspects of 2025’s narrative on climate, concentrating on the longer-term themes that will be central to our 2026 climate agenda.We mention several conferences where key talks are presented online – I am putting links to these in the notes and on the genn.cc website. I have also included a clip of Professor Kevin Anderson as quoted by David. I do recommend that listeners check out the official recordings of the National Emergency Briefing.

In this ClimateGenn episode I am speaking with cofounder of the Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA) and author of Paradise Lost, Paul Hoggett. Paul’s book was published in 2023 and is more relevant today than it was a couple of years ago, given the ongoing tragedies and violence we are all being subjected to and forced to respond to.

"There's that kind of coldness, that cold indifference in the face of inhumanity and suffering is something I think has been a very powerful element in the way in which, for example, oil companies and oil company professionals and executives have functioned."

Paul Hoggett - Author of 'Paradise Lost' 2023

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Paul refers to the work of the poet WB Yeats, in particular, one poem, ‘The Second Coming’ written in 1919 in the aftermath of the first world war. Given its resonance in the context of our lives today, I have pasted below for those who have not read it:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Source Wikipedia

I definitely recommend Paul’s book, Pandora’s Box too if you want to explore the issues that we discuss in this episode. I have found it fascinating.

W.B. Yeats – The Second Coming