Living with the planet LATE

Tackle big questions and explore bold ideas about the future of our planet in this season’s British Academy LATE.  

Join us for a vibrant evening of talks, workshops, performances, and exhibits that examine our evolving connection with the natural world – and discover how innovative research in the humanities and social sciences can help us address the environmental challenges we face today.

Immerse yourself in the sounds and music of the rainforests of Papua New Guinea; discuss cutting-edge solutions for tackling the biodiversity crisis with campaigners and researchers; find out how people in the past coped with extreme weather events and environmental change; and imagine your own climate future with a creative zine-making workshop

Programme

Panels

Earth in flux: Coping with environmental change through history

Professor Georgina Endfield FBA, Professor John Sabapathy, and Gaia Vince (chair)

How did past societies respond to dramatic shifts in their environments? How did they navigate unpredictable weather events, from floods to heatwaves to extreme winters? And what can their experiences tell us about the way we address climate and nature challenges today? This panel examines our relationship with environmental change through a historical lens.

Green shoots: Exploring pathways to a biodiverse future 

Kalpana Arias, Dr Sophia Hatzisavvidou, Guy Shrubsole and Dr Caitlin Hafferty (chair)

According to the latest State of Nature report, Britain is among the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and its wildlife continues to decline. Join our panel of researchers and campaigners as they unpack the historical drivers of biodiversity loss in the UK and discuss the challenges and opportunities of nature recovery — and why we need an approach that is sensitive to both place and people.

10-Minute Talks

From awareness to action: How can we close the climate education gap?

Jodie Bailey-Ho

In this talk, Jodie Bailey Ho, outgoing Department for Education Youth Focal Point for Sustainability and Climate Change, shares insights from six years at the intersection of youth activism, education, and policy. Drawing on personal experience and conversations with students across England, she explores the gaps in climate education, the importance of embedding sustainability across the curriculum, and the power of genuinely valuing youth voices.

From greenwashing to gaslighting: The business of climate change

Professor Bobby Banerjee FBA

This talk takes a critical look at the role of business in the era of climate breakdown. While corporations increasingly present themselves as leaders in the transition to sustainability, their strategies often reproduce the very systems of extraction, inequality, and exploitation that fuel the climate crisis. Any meaningful response requires centring climate justice and a radical revisioning of the purpose of business beyond the logics of profit and accumulation.

The biggest threat to the green transition

Dr Zachary Dickson

Not technology — politics. A core risk to the green transition is the politicisation of climate action. This talk explores how populist radical-right parties mobilise climate scepticism and why better policy design and clearer narratives can help prevent backlash to climate policies before it spreads.

What have the Ancient Greeks got to do with the environmental crisis?

Professor Edith Hall FBA

Most people think that humans started damaging the environment during the industrial revolution, but drastic deforestation in the Mediterranean world began in the Bronze Age. We can read ancient texts to reveal their secrets about our early ancestors' cavalier abuse of the natural world, especially Homer's Iliad. This talk proposes a new way of reading classic literature to help us raise consciousness about the ecological crisis today.

Beyond the numbers: Imagining just and sustainable AI futures

Dr Federica Lucivero

This talk argues that calculating the environmental impact of AI is not enough. This is not only because of the epistemic and societal challenges involved in producing these numbers, but also because we need to assess the values inherent in visions of AI futures.

Drop-in activities

Messages to the planet: A zine-making workshop

Join artist Fiona Quadri for a drop-in workshop to creatively reflect on your relationship with the planet – past, present, and future. Through collage, drawing, writing, and simple print techniques, explore personal and collective responses to climate, care, and sustainability.

Literature in the forest

Dr Dion Dobrzynski and Professor John Holmes

Learn how reading in a forest can change your perception of both forests and literature. Take a virtual reading tour of Ruskin Land in the Wyre Forest with J.R.R. Tolkien or John Ruskin, try your hand at drawing real or imagined plants, or settle in to hear and read stories and poems about trees and woods with the sounds of the forest around you.

Tour of the British Academy

Discover the extensive art collection and historic architecture of 10-11 Carlton House Terrace on a guided tour with the British Academy’s curator or explore the building at your own pace with a self-guided tour.

Exhibits and Performances

Voices of the rainforest: A day in the life of the Bosavi

Experience a day-in-the-life of the Bosavi rainforest in Papua New Guinea with a screening based on fieldwork by ethnomusicologist Professor Steven Feld FBA. See the rainforest brought to life and listen to the Bosavi people singing to — and about — their home.

Dancing climate science

After a prize-winning performance dancing her own PhD on plant-pathogen interactions, biology ballerina Dr Eleonora Moratto joins forces with the Chelsea Ballet Group and researchers from Imperial College London to turn climate science research into beautiful choreographies.

Seasights: Young people and the sea

Who gets to shape the future of our coastal communities? See the Northwest coast of England through the eyes of young people who live there and whose voices are often overlooked in political and economic decision-making with a digital exhibition curated by Dr Celine Germond-Duret.

Unfortunately, Dr Clare Richardson Barlow is unable to speak at the event due to unforeseen circumstances.

Further Information

Free, booking required.

Please note, this event is reserved for adults, aged 18 and over.

As tickets are free, people sometimes book and don't attend, so we have to issue more tickets than there are seats available to allow for this. Entry into this event is on a first-come, first-served basis and we recommend arriving in good time to avoid any disappointment.

Entry to all activities within the event is on a first-come, first-served basis. For health and safety reasons, you may not be admitted into an activity if the room has reached capacity.

Talks in the SHAPE Room and Lee Library will have live subtitles delivered by 121 Captions.

See information about the accessibility of the venue.

If you have any questions about this event, please refer to our Public Events FAQs. If your question is not answered, please email [email protected] or call the Events Team on +44(0)20 7969 5210.Image credit: Shutterstock