Is the end of the world nigh, or just the end of the world as we know it? Are we set to doom-scroll our way to apocalypse? Or is this the moment we wake up to ourselves, change course, and save the planet? You decide the winner. Your life could depend on it.
Don’t miss this hilarious battle of brains and bravado when two teams join Big Ideas’ host and science journalist Natasha Mitchell at Hobart City Hall for the annual Beaker Street Festival Great Debate.
This episode of ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas was recorded live at Beaker Street Festival in Tasmania.
TEAM AFFIRMATIVE – The Three Horsewomen of the Apocalypse
Dr Esmé Louise James (Team Captain)
Sex historian and TikTok star
Host of the Kinky History podcast and Sextistic shows
Author of Kinky History: A Rollicking Journey Through Our Sexual Past, Present, and Future (2024)
Kitana Mansell
Proud Palawa woman
Business Development Manager of Tasmania’s first Aboriginal native food business Palawa Kipli
Dr Kate Booth
Human geographer and Associate Professor in Urban & Regional Planning
Leader of the Critical Collapse Studies research program.
University of Tasmania
Thanks to the house band Stevie and the Bunsen Burners and the whole festival team.
TEAM NEGATIVE – The Transformers
Hannah Moloney (Team Captain)
Tasmanian host of Gardening Australia on ABC TV
Creator of Good Life Permaculture
Author of Good Life Growing: How to Grow Fruit and Veg Anywhere in Australia (2023) and The Good Life: How To Grow A Better World (2025)
Toby Walsh
Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence
Chief Scientist, UNSW.AI Institute, University of NSW
Author of The Shortest History of AI (2025), Machines Behaving Badly: The Morality of AI (2022), Faking It: Artificial Intelligence in a Human World(2023)
Gretta Pecl
Professor of marine ecology, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania
Director of the Centre of Marine Socioecology
A lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports
