In this lecture Global Policy’s General Editor David Held hosts former LSE Director Anthony Giddens at Durham Castle. Professor Giddens uses the opportunity to claim that we live in a ‘world that has moved off the edge of history’. By this he refers to the industrialised world’s attempts to cope with potentially civilisation ending risks, including the uncertainty of an increasing global population, global pandemics, nuclear conflict and climate change. In particular, he focuses on the last of these risks which he argues we must anticipate and prevent despite the relative lack of evidence for its existence and without the traditional comfort of examining history for a solution.
