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Astronomer Royal Lord Rees of Ludlow: Lord Speaker's Corner

26 March 2024

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'Astronomy is not just a fundamental science, but it's the most universal environmental science because everyone throughout history has gazed up at the same sky, the same vault of heaven and interpreted it in different ways'

Hear from the Astronomer Royal, Lord Rees of Ludlow, in the latest episode of Lord Speaker’s Corner.

In this episode

In this episode, Martin Rees - astrophysicist, former President of the Royal Society, and now Lord Rees of Ludlow and Astronomer Royal – speaks to Lord McFall of Alcluith.

‘Now that robots can do the things that humans were needed for 50 years ago, the case for sending people is getting weaker all the time.’ 

In this episode, Lord Rees shares that he thinks governments should no longer pay for manned spaceflight. He explains ‘robots can do all the practical things,’ meaning that ‘only people who really have a high appetite for risk should be going into space, and they should be privately funded, not by the rest of us.’

Looking beyond Earth, Lord Rees also advocates for the need to focus effort on tackling climate change rather than looking to move to Mars. He suggests that ‘dealing with climate change on earth is a doddle compared to making Mars habitable.’

‘There's a risk that we will leave for our descendants a depleted world with mass extinction… I think it's an ethical imperative that we should change our policies so that, just as we benefit from the heritage of centuries past, we leave a positive heritage for the future.’

From AI to bioethics, climate change to the disparities between the global north and south, Lord Rees shares his perspectives on some of the current challenges that we face. He also gives advice to ageing billionaires, saying ‘these billionaires when they were young, they want to be rich, now they're rich, they want to be young again, and that's not quite so easy to arrange.’

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Lord Speaker:

Lord Rees, I'm delighted to welcome you to Lord Speaker's Corner, and it's a privilege for us to have such a distinguished scientist along. Can I start by asking you about your early life? Because it seems that you had an unconventional education with your parents establishing a private school and you went on from there to university.

Lord Rees:

Well, I went to the school which my parents established, which was in the country in south Shropshire, had a really idyllic upbringing in beautiful surroundings. I went to the school till I was 13, but they then thought I should go to a more sort of academic school and I was sent away to a boarding school, Shrewsbury School, despite the fact that they were rather anti-public schools of the traditional kind. But I shared their views to be honest. But it was a very good place for getting taught and I got entry into Cambridge University at the age of 18.

Lord Speaker:

And you studied astrophysics there for your PhD?

Lord Rees:

Well, I studied maths and I realised that was a mistake because the other students doing maths, I realised they thought differently from me, I like to think in a more sort of synthetic way rather than long, logical arguments. And so after I got my bachelor's degree, I thought I'd try and do some postgraduate work. And I got into a group that was doing astrophysics and this was really trying to make sense of new mysterious phenomena that has been discovered, evidence for black holes and the expanding universe and all the rest of it. And so I got into that and it was a style of work that suited me quite well and it gave me a bit of advice that I would pass on to all young people thinking about a scientific career. Pick a subject where new things are happening, then you can be the first person to use new techniques, use new data, et cetera. Whereas if a subject's stagnant, then you are stuck doing the problems the old guys got stuck on. And so it's not so encouraging. So pick a subject where new things are happening.

Lord Speaker:

And today, where is that happening, where are the new things happening, and what areas would you encourage young people to get into?

Lord Rees:

Well, I would encourage astronomy again because the subject seemed on the roll when I was starting 50 years ago with the discovery of evidence for the big bang and black holes, et cetera. Whereas if I think of just the most recent five years, discovery is about planets around other stars, the James Webb Space Telescope looking right back to the formation of galaxies and lots of new ideas about why the universe is expanding the way it is, et cetera. And it's a wonderful exploration. But of course we do it not just to explore but to learn about the basic laws of nature, which of course manifest themselves in a far more extreme way out in the cosmos than we could ever simulate in our labs. And so we can actually extend our knowledge of the laws of nature and, as it were, test them to breaking point. And that's why it's really part of fundamental physics to understand the strange phenomena we find out in the universe.

Lord Speaker:

And how would you characterise the development of scientific understanding in the universe?

Lord Rees:

Well, I would say it's extraordinary that we can talk with a straight face about how the universe has evolved from the time when it had been expanding for just a millisecond, all the way from a millisecond up to 13 billion years. We understand the outlines, not the details obviously, but that's a change from a time when I was starting research, when there was a big controversy about whether the universe was in a steady state or whether it was evolving, even that wasn't clear then. My famous mentor, Fred Hoyle, believed the universe had always been there, had never changed. So that's been a big change and I think we've learned a great deal about the entities in the universe, understand stars, and we've discovered some new surprising entities which are behaving in ways we could never predict. But I think if you look 10 years ahead, we fill in the details of all those things, we'll have further checks of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

But I think the most important thing is going to be to understand the planets around other stars. We know our sun is surrounded by the earth and the other familiar planets, but what we've learned is that the night sky is far more interesting because the night sky contains stars, nearly all of which are surrounded by a retinue of planets just as the sun is surrounded by the earth and the other planets. And of course that raises the question, is there life on any of those planets? And that's the question which I'm always asked if people learn I'm an astronomer. Then lay people, they ask, 'are we alone?' And it's the most fascinating question in science, I would say almost. And so I'm not surprised that everyone's keen that we should make progress on it.

Lord Speaker:

And what's your position on that?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think to be open-minded because we just don't know, we've got to search for any evidence. It could be that life is a rare fluke that only existed here, but I think most people would suggest that life exists in some form in other places in the universe. Whether it exists in any advanced intelligent form is less certain, of course. And if there are aliens, I don't think there'll be like little green men with eyes on stalks. They'd be completely different from us, but it's worth a search. But that's a new area. And this of course links astronomy to biology and other subjects. And if I could put in a plug for astronomy as a subject, it's something which appeals to young people. Dinosaurs and space are the two things that the young kids like and one has to build on that enthusiasm to get people keen on more science.

And I think what is very encouraging is that there's so much for them to learn about. And I think I'd say this, if you look at all the sciences, astronomy and evolutionary biology are the two subjects that have a positive public image. People are a bit ambivalent about genetics and nuclear science because they know they could be used for good and for harm, whereas they're unambiguously positive about understanding the natural world and about the stars. And after all, astronomy is not just a fundamental science, but it's the most universal environmental science because everyone throughout history has gazed up at the same sky, the same vault of heaven and interpreted it in different ways. But it's something which brings us all together.

Lord Speaker:

If I'm correct. Did you say that the impetus for the evolution of life started elsewhere?

Lord Rees:

Well, that's a possibility. We don't know. I don't think that's very likely actually. I think it started here and we don't yet know exactly how it started because we've known for 100 years or more about Darwinian evolution, how from very simple life then over millions of years, natural selection leads to the development of the marvellous biosphere of which we are a part. But there's still a mystery and we don't yet understand how the very first life evolved, how you get some complex molecules to the first replicating metabolising entity that we could call alive on which natural selection can act. And that's still a mystery.

And there are people in the laboratory of molecular biology in Cambridge and other places working on trying to understand how this might have happened. But of course, what we also hope is that there may be some evidence from trying to get a spectrum of the light from planets around other stars, which would tell us if they have any vegetation on them, for instance, from the colour of the light, et cetera. And I think within 10 or 20 years we will have some evidence of that kind. So the question's entirely open at the moment, but I think we'll get some evidence and this will be an exciting development in the next 20 or 30 years.

Lord Speaker:

How important is it for scientists to engage with wider society and your membership of the House of Lords? How has that assisted you otherwise in reaching out?

Lord Rees:

Yes. Well, I mean I think obviously as an educator and as a professor, one should outreach to the public whenever possible. I do that in the case of astronomy. But I think if you think of science in general, and I have some perspective on that because I was for five years president of the Royal Society, which is our academy for UK and the Commonwealth for all the sciences. And that is concerned with all the sciences. And I think it's very, very important that although obviously most people won't know the details of sciences and no scientist knows more than just a tiny fraction of the overall field, we have to specialise. But I think it's very important that everyone has a feel for what science is about, how it operates and how it's advancing by settling controversies and firming up things that are speculative. And I think that's very important because in so many areas of politics and policy, there is a scientific dimension, obviously energy, environment, health, the pandemic and all that.

They have a scientific dimension and the decisions which should be made are decisions made by the public and representatives because scientists have no expertise in ethics particularly. But I think in making those decisions, it's very important that the politicians and the public who elect them should have some feel for science, what it can do and what it can't do. And also of course have some feel for numbers and statistics and the fallacies that could come from misinterpreting those things. So I think it's very, very important and it is really something which is relevant to school level education, to have an education which gives everyone a feel for numbers and a basic idea of the environment they live in.

Lord Speaker:

How important is it to have individuals of experience and expertise in the House of Lords and does that assist science in engaging with wider society?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think it's very important that they should be in the political process in the Commons and in the Lords. And of course it's easier to have them in the Lords because they can continue with their profession in some way. And they are people who may have spent 20 years or 30 years of their career full-time doing science, and therefore that's probably too late in the present system for them to go into active full-time politics in the House of Commons. And so I think it's natural that the House of Lords is a better location for scientists and experts in other things like engineering and medicine than the Commons. And I think it's very good that there are people who are appointed by the Crossbench route.

Lord Speaker:

The fundamental responsibility of members in the House of Lords is to ensure that there's better law. How with your experience has that helped you and what tangible benefits do you think your membership in the House of Lords has delivered?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think there are a lot of laws which govern bioethics, which are better in this country because of the way they've been through the mill of the House of Lords. Take the most famous case in 1980s, the law on embryo research saying that up to 14 days it's possible to use human embryos, but beyond that it's not. That was a consensus which developed, and it was formulated by a committee chaired by Professor Mary Warnock who was a philosopher.

Lord Speaker:

Oh yeah, I remember that.

Lord Rees:

And I think that was something which was adopted by other countries. And that's an example where a group of experts including philosophers and scientists were able to actually come to a consensus. And there are other examples when we need more expertise than you can find among active full-time members of the House of Commons. And so it is very important that this should happen. And of course there are more and more issues of this kind coming up. I think to take one example, it's going to be possible to genetically modify not just animals, but even humans perhaps to some extent. And the question is that ethical? And if not, how do we constrain it?

Lord Speaker:

Do you think there's a risk that humanity won't get past the end of the 21st century?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think I've written some books on this topic and I think we will certainly have a bumpy ride, but I think we will still be there. You can imagine scenarios that wipe everything out, but I think we'll still be there. But the reason I'm not very optimistic is that we are more empowered by technology than we ever were. And one species, named the human species, is having an effect on the rest of the natural world in a way it never did in the past because there are now 8 billion of us and we're all more empowered by technology and we use more energy and use more resources. And so we are depleting natural capital as it were, and there's a risk that we will leave for our descendants, a depleted world with mass extinction, et cetera. And I think it's an ethical imperative that we should change our policies so that just as we benefit from the heritage of centuries past, we leave a positive heritage for the future.space

We must be good ancestors as it were of the future generations. And that's a very important ethical system. But also the other thing I worry about is that new technologies are so powerful that even a few people, a few dissidents or a dissident group can cause some kind of accident, which could cascade globally, massive cyber-attacks, which can knock out the electricity grid in a large region. And of course that will lead to social disruption in a few days. And these things can spread globally in our world, which is interconnected in a way it never was in previous centuries. And so I think we are vulnerable to classes of catastrophe, which are not just local but can spread globally. I mean COVID-19 spread globally as we know, and any other pandemic would spread globally and even worse than the prospect of future pandemics, which could be more virulent and more transmissible than COVID-19, is in my view, the possibility that people with evil intent might engineer more dangerous viruses because it's possible by a technique called gain of function to make viruses more virulent and transmissible than the natural variants.

And if that can be done and that leaks out by error or by design, that could cause an even worse pandemic than the natural ones. And of course you mentioned AI, and AI and everything that goes with it means that we are more and more dependent on complicated networks, which we don't fully understand. And some people worry about them taking over the world as it were. I worry less about that than about them breaking down some bugs being present in the system, which is very hard to deal with. And if we become overdependent, then that of course will cause a catastrophe. It may cause the electric grid to break down. We had a mini version quite recently when the air traffic control system broke down because of some bug or some incorrect entry into a system. And so these systems are so complicated and so interconnected that I think we're going to be very lucky if we can escape severe setbacks of this kind.

Lord Speaker:

I think you've said that this could be achieved by just a lone wolf?

Lord Rees:

I think so. I'm not a technical expert especially in that, but we know that lone wolfs can carry out cyber-attacks and we may get to the stage when some biologist can, as it were, play God on the kitchen table and make some new variant of a virus, which is very, very dangerous. And I do worry about that, and I think that's very intractable because you can't build a nuclear weapon in your back garden. It needs big facilities and they can be monitored globally as we know by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But if someone really wants to make a dangerous pathogen, then they could do it in an existing lab or maybe in a private lab that no knows about.

And it's very, very hard to be able to verify compliance with any regulations. And of course there are special labs that have high security and they are monitored. But I think the point is that we can have these regulations, but enforcing regulations globally could be as impossible as enforcing the drug laws globally or the tax laws globally. We've not had much success in either of those two. So I do worry very much indeed, and I think that the only way we can make ourselves adequately safe against a possible mega disaster of an engineered pandemic is by accepting more intrusive surveillance than we've had to accept up till now.

Lord Speaker:

What advice would you have for politicians and government? My experience, whether in the House of Commons or in the House of Lords, is that governments are largely behind the curve than society itself, technology is increasing, but the laws that regulate that are way behind it. So what advice do you have?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think they have to bear in mind that there are new things that are happening, cyber-attacks and all that, which are at the frontiers of engineering expertise. And it's very, very hard to legislate for those. But we have to because they can be so colossally important and we do have to develop technology in a benign way because as technology gets more powerful, then the stakes get higher, it can produce more benefits. And of course we need those benefits to get clean energy, not just for the global north but for the global south, and we need to have lots of innovation for that. But that same innovation can be misused and legislating for that or regulating for that is something which should be done. But as I said, I think it's very, very difficult. And the biggest problems are things that could be of global consequence. So even a tiny, tiny probability is too much, but which are very hard to regulate. And I would put generating new engineered viruses as top of my list.

Lord Speaker:

You mentioned clean energy sources, the drive for clean energy sources, you're suggesting that globally that should be taken so seriously it's on the same lines as the Manhattan Project or moon landings. And if I'm correct, the relationship between the rich countries and the poor countries where the rich countries have to develop this to ensure that the poor countries skip the fossil fuel era. There are huge ramifications in that. Could you explain your thinking?

Lord Rees:

Yes. Well, I think this is a very, very important thing which I address in one of my books, that we can, if we have the will, move towards net-zero in the rich countries to the north. Whether we are going to is another matter, but we have the technology and we could do that. But of course, the countries of the global south at the moment are producing far less energy per capita than we are in the north, but there are more of them, and by 2050 there'll be four billion people in the global south, I mean India and Sub-Saharan Africa, et cetera. And we want them to develop, they'll need more energy per capita, and it'll be no good if we in the north have achieved net-zero if at the same time by 2050 the global south is producing as much CO2 as we in the north are today.

And so as you say, we've got to ensure that they can leapfrog directly from what they're doing now, which is very low consumption of energy and often rather primitive techniques, directly to clean energy bypassing coal and oil. And that's very hard, but we've got to see if this can be done. And it's rather like they all leapfrog directly to mobile phones never having had landlines throughout Africa. And so in the same way we would hope that we can collaborate with them and it can't be neo-colonialism, it's got to be through helping their technology and we've got to ensure that they can develop clean energy on a scale to suit their own countries.

Lord Speaker:

And the thorny question of redistribution of resources, would that have to be involved?

Lord Rees:

The inequalities within nations between the richest and the poorest and the equality between nations, the global north and those in the south are of course unacceptably large. And we need a political system that gradually reduces them, and we should do that and help the global south to advance. And this is not just for altruistic reasons. If that doesn't happen, then I think we can expect continual disruption and of course massive migration because the one thing which they do have in the globalist south is the ability to travel and also the knowledge of what's happening. They all have TVs or smartphones and things like that, so they know the injustice of their fate.

It's not like 100 years ago when they were living lives separate from the rest of the world that didn't know what they're missing. So I think for all these reasons, we've got to ensure that there's a levelling between nations as well as within nations. And this is going to, I think, involve something which is a mega version of the post-World War II Marshall Plan and Lendlease and things like that whereby we invest in the global south and help it to develop.

Lord Speaker:

And you've advocated the establishment of supranational institutions to fight climate change and others with an appropriate regulatory framework. Does that apply to AI as well as these other subjects?

Lord Rees:

Certainly. I think the special problem of AI is that the main players are now multinational conglomerates as we know, which are dominating the world's market. And it's very hard to tax these companies properly and for the same reasons can be very hard to enforce regulations on them. But we've got to try and it's good that it starts being made in a number of ways to try and get agreed regulations, but of course, the fact that there's a few really dominant players in the market makes it more difficult for nations to assert themselves even in collaboration. But I think it's very important to ensure that there is regulation of these new technologies.

Lord Speaker:

Now you've made the case for carers to have increased conditions in that, I suppose with an ageing society, their role is going to be more important.

Lord Rees:

It is, of course, it depends not simply on the ageing society, but the trajectory of our health. I mean, if we have a long and slow decline, it's going to be far worse in terms of the number of healthcare workers needed in the population. So the idea is to extend healthy years of life and not those where we are dependent on others. Whether that could happen, I don't know. Of course there are some people who want to extend the lifespan in a big way. There're three labs, two in California and one actually in Cambridge called Altos Labs, which are bankrolled by billionaires who want to extend their lifespan and live much longer. And I rather hope they won't succeed because this would be a fundamental new kind of inequality.

And the way I would see it is that these billionaires when they were young, they wanted to be rich, now they're rich, they want to be young again, and that's not quite so easy to arrange. And if they could arrange it, that would be perhaps not good for society. But on the other hand, extending the healthy lifespan for everyone and extending medical knowledge is surely a good thing. And that's going to be something where we hope that AI may be able to help.

Lord Speaker:

Non-humans travelling huge distances and time spans, which humans cannot do, they're unattainable. I think you've made that point?

Lord Rees:

Yes, yes. I haven't answered the second part of your question about aliens. I think that there probably is some kind of life out there, a long way away on a planet orbiting other stars, whether it's anything like us at all, I don't know. I mean, I think it's probably something unrecognisably different. And I also, I'm sceptical about the idea of a human space flight being worthwhile. As you know, humans went to the moon 50 years ago, and we are old enough to remember that. And I certainly thought it'd only be 10 years before the footprints on Mars, but of course that didn't happen and people haven't even been back to the moon. I talk about that. But now that robots can do the things that humans were needed for 50 years ago, the case for sending people is getting weaker all the time.

So my line on the human space flight is that it should not be funded publicly, certainly not by government agencies because they've got to be very safety conscious and that makes it very expensive. Robots can do all the practical things, assembling big structures in space and exploring the surface of Mars and all that. If humans want to fly into space as an adventure, then perhaps they can be supported by sponsorship or the billionaires. We know that Messrs Musk and Bezos are spending billions on space exploration and they could perhaps launch the kind of people, adventurers prepared to accept a very high risk and therefore be launched much more cheaply. So my line is that robots should do all the practical things and only people who really have a high appetite for risk should be going into space, and they should be privately funded, not by the rest of us.

Lord Speaker:

You mentioned Musk. He has indicated that humans could live on the moon or Mars, but I think the point you made is that space travel will not sort out the problems that we have on earth.

Lord Rees:

Yes, I mean, I disagree with him on that. I think there might be a few crazy pioneers living on Mars, just like there are people living at the South Pole, although it's far less hospitable than the South Pole, but the idea of mass migration to avoid the earth's problems, which he and a few other space enthusiasts adopt, that I think is a dangerous illusion. I don't think it's realistic and we've got to solve those problems here on earth. Dealing with climate change on earth is a doddle compared to making Mars habitable. So I don't think we should hold that out as a long-term aim at all.

So I don't agree with him, but I think he is an extraordinary figure, and I think we've got to hand it to him that despite being a rather strange personality, he's got great achievements in that he's transformed two major industries, electric cars and rockets, because in fact, more than 100 rockets per year are rockets that he's made, the Falcon Rockets and there've been more than 100 launched with no failures at all. And so he has done a much better job than the big conglomerates that used to work for NASA in producing efficient rockets, which can be reused, and that will make it cheaper to actually send stuff into space and more feasible to have some engineering done in space and even solar energy gathered from space.

Lord Speaker:

The advances that scientists and technologists will make, do they need a wider buy-in from society and politicians? And if they do, how do you envisage that turning out?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think much of innovative science is best supported by the public purse, whether it's in universities or in standalone research institutes is a different matter. That's a separate debate, but pre-competitive research is best done and supported publicly. And I think one thing we've got to do is to ensure that the UK is a leading player in this. We have a very strong tradition in research and we don't have much in the way of raw materials. So I think it's fair to say that if we don't get smarter, we'll get poorer. So let's ensure that our science is well-supported. The last few years has been rather worrying, the Brexit and the loss of the support from the European Research Council, Horizon, et cetera, that made the UK less attractive. And so we've had more people leaving the UK for other countries than attracting, what we want is to make this country an attractive place for doing research. And that probably does involve some slight changes and not doing something we're doing now like charging huge amounts of money for visas.

Lord Speaker:

With a world of technology, our young people in education, and you have a real passion for that, they need to understand science more. What way should the curriculum be changed to ensure that that's the outcome?

Lord Rees:

Yes. Well, I think that's a very important question because more people now accept we need to have a broader curriculum. Post 16, we shouldn't have specialised A levels, we should have a technical stream and all that and give people more choice so that a choice made at 16 doesn't foreclose what happens later when you have to make a decision for higher education. And I think that's generally accepted. What's happening now all too often is that young people, who when they're very young are fascinated by dinosaurs and space and all that, they aren't sufficiently well taught to maintain that enthusiasm. And when they get to age 16, when as you know they have to decide on specialisations for their A levels, many of them drop science. And that forecloses the option.

Lord Speaker:

Particularly physics.

Lord Rees:

Yeah. And that forecloses the option at age 18 plus of going back and doing a specialised science course. So we've got to keep options open to the age of 18 and have less specialisation. And I would go further than that.

I think we've got to make our higher education more flexible. We want to have a mixture of technical and academic education post 18, and we also want to get away from the view that universities are to provide three-year courses between the age of 18 and 21 for full-time residential students, we need to give people a chance to intermit and come back later. At the moment, one thing that's wrong, for instance, is that if you're a student and you go to university at 18, and if things don't work out for you, you have problems and you drop out after two years, then you are dismissed as wastage and your university vice chancellor is berated for the wastage and there's an incentive to lower the quality of the degree, which is not a good idea. What should happen instead is that someone in that position should get a certificate.

They should say, I've had two years of college and have the opportunity to go back and do more courses at a later stage and any time through life, indeed. And the government in a small way has moved in the right direction by the lifelong learning entitlement - a loan rather the grant. So I think we need to move in that direction. And I think we also need to ensure that people can do a mixture of online learning and residential learning to enable people of a mature age to participate. I don't think online learning alone works except for motivated mature people doing a professional master's degree or something like that. You need to have a mixture, but I think we can learn something from the development of online teaching. But I think the main thing is that we need to make access to higher education, and that includes technical education more open and more flexible so that you can accumulate credits through life.

Lord Speaker:

And do you think lifelong learning can assist and enrich people's lives and wellbeing?

Lord Rees:

Oh, definitely. I think it can. Yes. And of course it doesn't have to be formal. Of course, once people get the bug that it's good to read a lot, then they can learn informally. There's a difference between formal education and education, but I think it should be possible for people to get education when they want it without financial sacrifice.

Lord Speaker:

And maybe as a launchpad, models like the Open University.

Lord Rees:

Well, the open university was a great pioneering achievement of course.

Lord Speaker:

And I did a degree there...

Lord Rees:

Yes, and I think that showed that there is a demand, and it could be far better now when we have far better online facilities than they had with late night TV programmes in effect, weren't they? And so we could do far better. And so I think that's a real model. And I think also that's a model that could be spread around the world.

Lord Speaker:

Science, technology, engineering, and maths, STEM subjects. You've been very strong in them, but you've also added another subject, arts, to make it STEAM.

Lord Rees:

Yes.

Lord Speaker:

Why is art so important not just to the culture, but to the political process?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think it's very important that people should study the arts, and especially if they can actively pursue an art and creative art, that's very good for everyone. But I think education in languages, for instance, shouldn't be allowed to lapse as is happening now. And I think that clearly just as I deplore the fact that people don't know the difference between a proton and a protein, it's equally sad if they can't find Taiwan or Iran on a map. And many people can't do that, or if they don't know the basic literature of their country and the history of their country. So I think wide education ought to include the subject which are typecast as humanities, as well as science. So when I said that everyone should understand basic science and their environment, the same thing goes for understanding the history of their country and the language.

Lord Speaker:

The distinguished historian Simon Schama made programmes with the BBC where he said that the culture and arts have an impact on politics and a very important impact. How do you see that? What's your view?

Lord Rees:

Well, I mean, I think that politicians ought to certainly be aware of history. If I could say something which is against science, if we have a senior politician, I'd rather they got a PhD in history than in dentistry, for instance, because one is more relevant to the decisions they have to take. So I certainly think that we want to have politicians who know the background context to the decisions they're making. That's crucially important.

Lord Speaker:

You have thought very deeply about the future of humankind. And when you look into the future, would you say that you're fundamentally a techno pessimist or a techno optimist?

Lord Rees:

I would say I'm a techno optimist but a political pessimist, in that I think we already have the scientific knowledge that would enable us to provide a lifestyle like we have in this country for everyone in the world. But we're not heading that way at all. And the reason for that is the politics. It's very, very hard to arrange to reduce these inequalities and all that. So I'm a scientific optimist and I think science is going to continue to increase the scope of what we're doing. But the downside is that politicians haven't proved very effective at the international relations that would lead to the benefits being spread. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, the advances in science give new deeper downsides as well as more exciting upsides. And so we've got to ensure that we can harness the benefits and minimise the downsides.

But I think the main thing that I'm pessimistic about is the politics, which is going to make it very, very hard to collaborate and also to move towards a world that's sustainable because we know that we have to minimise the risk of pandemics and all that sort of thing. But we know also that if we go in as we are now, we are heading for a world that's going to be depleted in many ways with mass extinctions and all that sort of thing. And so there's a risk that we will leave a worse world for our descendants, and I think that's something which we should feel ashamed of given what we have benefited from generations past.

Lord Speaker:

And you say that the electoral cycle of four to five years works against these scientific ambitions?

Lord Rees:

I think it does, and I think we could get round that by having more commissions outside politics so that there's an acceptance that they're decided in the way, like the Bank of England and all that, which don't reverse policies when the government changes. I think that's one thing that we ought to be able to do. I think apart from that, we've got to perhaps accept that we delegate more authorities to multinational bodies. We already have the International Atomic Energy Agency, we have the World Health Organisation. I think we need an international body to deal with AI and all those issues, and I think for biosecurity, et cetera, and maybe others. So I think we've got to accept that many of the challenges we face can't be tackled by each nation separately, and so we need to delegate more of our national decisions to an international body.

Lord Speaker:

In the defence area, what are your worries about the future with automatic weapons, which some distinguished scientists would say there's no control, no regulation on it at the moment.

Lord Rees:

Well, it is a worry of course, automatic weapons, which are not under direct human control and things can happen very quickly, so that a third world war could be over in a day. So we've got to avoid that kind of situation. And I think we've also got to avoid the introduction of new weapons, bio and all that. And also nuclear weapons of course, which have been with us for 70 years. We've avoided through luck as much as judgement, nuclear exchange. I mean, at the time of the Cuba crisis, Kennedy said that the risk was between one in three and evens. And McNamara in his later years you remember, said that they were lucky rather than wise in order to avoid catastrophe at that time.

And there were many near misses. And I think that it is also a new class of threats and something which we discuss at our centre in Cambridge, that if the command and control system for nuclear weapons is sort of automated, then of course there's a risk that people will be overconfident about how reliable it is and can't tolerate any kind of probability of things going wrong in something as colossal as that.

Lord Speaker:

Yeah, in the Cuban missile crisis, I think President Kennedy, in his own words, didn't take the advice of the chiefs of the defence staff, but deliberated on the issue and discerned it and established a personal relationship with Khrushchev in Russia. So we need sensible politicians. What advice do you have for making politicians sensible?

Lord Rees:

Now we need on a bigger scale, people to be prepared to make decisions, and they will do that if the public is behind them and the public will only get behind them if there are charismatic influencers who do persuade them. And in my book I mention a rather disparate quartet of influencers on my list. The first is Pope Francis, who's encyclical in 2015.

Lord Speaker:

Oh, Laudato si'

Lord Rees:

Yeah, the Laudato si', that was the first time a Pope had stated that humans have a responsibility to the rest of creation and don't just have dominion over it, which was a traditional view. And he had a standing ovation at the UN, and he made a big impact on forging the consensus at the 2015 Climate Conference. He did that. And so he's my first. My second is our secular Pope David Attenborough, who is worldwide being a leader, influencer of getting people to care about nature and the problem it's in. And two others, Bill Gates, who I think deserves credit for being someone who talks sensibly about technology and points out it isn't reasonable with our known knowledge of technology to move towards net-zero and all that.

And fourth, Greta Thunberg, who's enthused a whole younger generation, and of course the younger generation who will be alive at the end of the century. They're naturally the ones who care most about this, but we ought to care about the lives of our grandchildren and care equally about this. So it's influencers like that who may be more charismatic than the average scientist, and they can help to raise these issues on the public agenda in competition with the noise level from urgent policy questions, which politicians clearly get preoccupied with for most of their time.

Lord Speaker:

Well, Lord Rees, not just I'm delighted but privileged to have you along. This has been a fascinating experience for me, and I hope when this is made, that many people will listen seriously to you, not least the politicians. So thank you for your wisdom.

Lord Rees:

Thank you very much.

 

Transcript

Lord Speaker:

Lord Rees, I'm delighted to welcome you to Lord Speaker's Corner, and it's a privilege for us to have such a distinguished scientist along. Can I start by asking you about your early life? Because it seems that you had an unconventional education with your parents establishing a private school and you went on from there to university.

Lord Rees:

Well, I went to the school which my parents established, which was in the country in south Shropshire, had a really idyllic upbringing in beautiful surroundings. I went to the school till I was 13, but they then thought I should go to a more sort of academic school and I was sent away to a boarding school, Shrewsbury School, despite the fact that they were rather anti-public schools of the traditional kind. But I shared their views to be honest. But it was a very good place for getting taught and I got entry into Cambridge University at the age of 18.

Lord Speaker:

And you studied astrophysics there for your PhD?

Lord Rees:

Well, I studied maths and I realised that was a mistake because the other students doing maths, I realised they thought differently from me, I like to think in a more sort of synthetic way rather than long, logical arguments. And so after I got my bachelor's degree, I thought I'd try and do some postgraduate work. And I got into a group that was doing astrophysics and this was really trying to make sense of new mysterious phenomena that has been discovered, evidence for black holes and the expanding universe and all the rest of it. And so I got into that and it was a style of work that suited me quite well and it gave me a bit of advice that I would pass on to all young people thinking about a scientific career. Pick a subject where new things are happening, then you can be the first person to use new techniques, use new data, et cetera. Whereas if a subject's stagnant, then you are stuck doing the problems the old guys got stuck on. And so it's not so encouraging. So pick a subject where new things are happening.

Lord Speaker:

And today, where is that happening, where are the new things happening, and what areas would you encourage young people to get into?

Lord Rees:

Well, I would encourage astronomy again because the subject seemed on the roll when I was starting 50 years ago with the discovery of evidence for the big bang and black holes, et cetera. Whereas if I think of just the most recent five years, discovery is about planets around other stars, the James Webb Space Telescope looking right back to the formation of galaxies and lots of new ideas about why the universe is expanding the way it is, et cetera. And it's a wonderful exploration. But of course we do it not just to explore but to learn about the basic laws of nature, which of course manifest themselves in a far more extreme way out in the cosmos than we could ever simulate in our labs. And so we can actually extend our knowledge of the laws of nature and, as it were, test them to breaking point. And that's why it's really part of fundamental physics to understand the strange phenomena we find out in the universe.

Lord Speaker:

And how would you characterise the development of scientific understanding in the universe?

Lord Rees:

Well, I would say it's extraordinary that we can talk with a straight face about how the universe has evolved from the time when it had been expanding for just a millisecond, all the way from a millisecond up to 13 billion years. We understand the outlines, not the details obviously, but that's a change from a time when I was starting research, when there was a big controversy about whether the universe was in a steady state or whether it was evolving, even that wasn't clear then. My famous mentor, Fred Hoyle, believed the universe had always been there, had never changed. So that's been a big change and I think we've learned a great deal about the entities in the universe, understand stars, and we've discovered some new surprising entities which are behaving in ways we could never predict. But I think if you look 10 years ahead, we fill in the details of all those things, we'll have further checks of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

But I think the most important thing is going to be to understand the planets around other stars. We know our sun is surrounded by the earth and the other familiar planets, but what we've learned is that the night sky is far more interesting because the night sky contains stars, nearly all of which are surrounded by a retinue of planets just as the sun is surrounded by the earth and the other planets. And of course that raises the question, is there life on any of those planets? And that's the question which I'm always asked if people learn I'm an astronomer. Then lay people, they ask, 'are we alone?' And it's the most fascinating question in science, I would say almost. And so I'm not surprised that everyone's keen that we should make progress on it.

Lord Speaker:

And what's your position on that?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think to be open-minded because we just don't know, we've got to search for any evidence. It could be that life is a rare fluke that only existed here, but I think most people would suggest that life exists in some form in other places in the universe. Whether it exists in any advanced intelligent form is less certain, of course. And if there are aliens, I don't think there'll be like little green men with eyes on stalks. They'd be completely different from us, but it's worth a search. But that's a new area. And this of course links astronomy to biology and other subjects. And if I could put in a plug for astronomy as a subject, it's something which appeals to young people. Dinosaurs and space are the two things that the young kids like and one has to build on that enthusiasm to get people keen on more science.

And I think what is very encouraging is that there's so much for them to learn about. And I think I'd say this, if you look at all the sciences, astronomy and evolutionary biology are the two subjects that have a positive public image. People are a bit ambivalent about genetics and nuclear science because they know they could be used for good and for harm, whereas they're unambiguously positive about understanding the natural world and about the stars. And after all, astronomy is not just a fundamental science, but it's the most universal environmental science because everyone throughout history has gazed up at the same sky, the same vault of heaven and interpreted it in different ways. But it's something which brings us all together.

Lord Speaker:

If I'm correct. Did you say that the impetus for the evolution of life started elsewhere?

Lord Rees:

Well, that's a possibility. We don't know. I don't think that's very likely actually. I think it started here and we don't yet know exactly how it started because we've known for 100 years or more about Darwinian evolution, how from very simple life then over millions of years, natural selection leads to the development of the marvellous biosphere of which we are a part. But there's still a mystery and we don't yet understand how the very first life evolved, how you get some complex molecules to the first replicating metabolising entity that we could call alive on which natural selection can act. And that's still a mystery.

And there are people in the laboratory of molecular biology in Cambridge and other places working on trying to understand how this might have happened. But of course, what we also hope is that there may be some evidence from trying to get a spectrum of the light from planets around other stars, which would tell us if they have any vegetation on them, for instance, from the colour of the light, et cetera. And I think within 10 or 20 years we will have some evidence of that kind. So the question's entirely open at the moment, but I think we'll get some evidence and this will be an exciting development in the next 20 or 30 years.

Lord Speaker:

How important is it for scientists to engage with wider society and your membership of the House of Lords? How has that assisted you otherwise in reaching out?

Lord Rees:

Yes. Well, I mean I think obviously as an educator and as a professor, one should outreach to the public whenever possible. I do that in the case of astronomy. But I think if you think of science in general, and I have some perspective on that because I was for five years president of the Royal Society, which is our academy for UK and the Commonwealth for all the sciences. And that is concerned with all the sciences. And I think it's very, very important that although obviously most people won't know the details of sciences and no scientist knows more than just a tiny fraction of the overall field, we have to specialise. But I think it's very important that everyone has a feel for what science is about, how it operates and how it's advancing by settling controversies and firming up things that are speculative. And I think that's very important because in so many areas of politics and policy, there is a scientific dimension, obviously energy, environment, health, the pandemic and all that.

They have a scientific dimension and the decisions which should be made are decisions made by the public and representatives because scientists have no expertise in ethics particularly. But I think in making those decisions, it's very important that the politicians and the public who elect them should have some feel for science, what it can do and what it can't do. And also of course have some feel for numbers and statistics and the fallacies that could come from misinterpreting those things. So I think it's very, very important and it is really something which is relevant to school level education, to have an education which gives everyone a feel for numbers and a basic idea of the environment they live in.

Lord Speaker:

How important is it to have individuals of experience and expertise in the House of Lords and does that assist science in engaging with wider society?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think it's very important that they should be in the political process in the Commons and in the Lords. And of course it's easier to have them in the Lords because they can continue with their profession in some way. And they are people who may have spent 20 years or 30 years of their career full-time doing science, and therefore that's probably too late in the present system for them to go into active full-time politics in the House of Commons. And so I think it's natural that the House of Lords is a better location for scientists and experts in other things like engineering and medicine than the Commons. And I think it's very good that there are people who are appointed by the Crossbench route.

Lord Speaker:

The fundamental responsibility of members in the House of Lords is to ensure that there's better law. How with your experience has that helped you and what tangible benefits do you think your membership in the House of Lords has delivered?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think there are a lot of laws which govern bioethics, which are better in this country because of the way they've been through the mill of the House of Lords. Take the most famous case in 1980s, the law on embryo research saying that up to 14 days it's possible to use human embryos, but beyond that it's not. That was a consensus which developed, and it was formulated by a committee chaired by Professor Mary Warnock who was a philosopher.

Lord Speaker:

Oh yeah, I remember that.

Lord Rees:

And I think that was something which was adopted by other countries. And that's an example where a group of experts including philosophers and scientists were able to actually come to a consensus. And there are other examples when we need more expertise than you can find among active full-time members of the House of Commons. And so it is very important that this should happen. And of course there are more and more issues of this kind coming up. I think to take one example, it's going to be possible to genetically modify not just animals, but even humans perhaps to some extent. And the question is that ethical? And if not, how do we constrain it?

Lord Speaker:

Do you think there's a risk that humanity won't get past the end of the 21st century?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think I've written some books on this topic and I think we will certainly have a bumpy ride, but I think we will still be there. You can imagine scenarios that wipe everything out, but I think we'll still be there. But the reason I'm not very optimistic is that we are more empowered by technology than we ever were. And one species, named the human species, is having an effect on the rest of the natural world in a way it never did in the past because there are now 8 billion of us and we're all more empowered by technology and we use more energy and use more resources. And so we are depleting natural capital as it were, and there's a risk that we will leave for our descendants, a depleted world with mass extinction, et cetera. And I think it's an ethical imperative that we should change our policies so that just as we benefit from the heritage of centuries past, we leave a positive heritage for the future.space

We must be good ancestors as it were of the future generations. And that's a very important ethical system. But also the other thing I worry about is that new technologies are so powerful that even a few people, a few dissidents or a dissident group can cause some kind of accident, which could cascade globally, massive cyber-attacks, which can knock out the electricity grid in a large region. And of course that will lead to social disruption in a few days. And these things can spread globally in our world, which is interconnected in a way it never was in previous centuries. And so I think we are vulnerable to classes of catastrophe, which are not just local but can spread globally. I mean COVID-19 spread globally as we know, and any other pandemic would spread globally and even worse than the prospect of future pandemics, which could be more virulent and more transmissible than COVID-19, is in my view, the possibility that people with evil intent might engineer more dangerous viruses because it's possible by a technique called gain of function to make viruses more virulent and transmissible than the natural variants.

And if that can be done and that leaks out by error or by design, that could cause an even worse pandemic than the natural ones. And of course you mentioned AI, and AI and everything that goes with it means that we are more and more dependent on complicated networks, which we don't fully understand. And some people worry about them taking over the world as it were. I worry less about that than about them breaking down some bugs being present in the system, which is very hard to deal with. And if we become overdependent, then that of course will cause a catastrophe. It may cause the electric grid to break down. We had a mini version quite recently when the air traffic control system broke down because of some bug or some incorrect entry into a system. And so these systems are so complicated and so interconnected that I think we're going to be very lucky if we can escape severe setbacks of this kind.

Lord Speaker:

I think you've said that this could be achieved by just a lone wolf?

Lord Rees:

I think so. I'm not a technical expert especially in that, but we know that lone wolfs can carry out cyber-attacks and we may get to the stage when some biologist can, as it were, play God on the kitchen table and make some new variant of a virus, which is very, very dangerous. And I do worry about that, and I think that's very intractable because you can't build a nuclear weapon in your back garden. It needs big facilities and they can be monitored globally as we know by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But if someone really wants to make a dangerous pathogen, then they could do it in an existing lab or maybe in a private lab that no knows about.

And it's very, very hard to be able to verify compliance with any regulations. And of course there are special labs that have high security and they are monitored. But I think the point is that we can have these regulations, but enforcing regulations globally could be as impossible as enforcing the drug laws globally or the tax laws globally. We've not had much success in either of those two. So I do worry very much indeed, and I think that the only way we can make ourselves adequately safe against a possible mega disaster of an engineered pandemic is by accepting more intrusive surveillance than we've had to accept up till now.

Lord Speaker:

What advice would you have for politicians and government? My experience, whether in the House of Commons or in the House of Lords, is that governments are largely behind the curve than society itself, technology is increasing, but the laws that regulate that are way behind it. So what advice do you have?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think they have to bear in mind that there are new things that are happening, cyber-attacks and all that, which are at the frontiers of engineering expertise. And it's very, very hard to legislate for those. But we have to because they can be so colossally important and we do have to develop technology in a benign way because as technology gets more powerful, then the stakes get higher, it can produce more benefits. And of course we need those benefits to get clean energy, not just for the global north but for the global south, and we need to have lots of innovation for that. But that same innovation can be misused and legislating for that or regulating for that is something which should be done. But as I said, I think it's very, very difficult. And the biggest problems are things that could be of global consequence. So even a tiny, tiny probability is too much, but which are very hard to regulate. And I would put generating new engineered viruses as top of my list.

Lord Speaker:

You mentioned clean energy sources, the drive for clean energy sources, you're suggesting that globally that should be taken so seriously it's on the same lines as the Manhattan Project or moon landings. And if I'm correct, the relationship between the rich countries and the poor countries where the rich countries have to develop this to ensure that the poor countries skip the fossil fuel era. There are huge ramifications in that. Could you explain your thinking?

Lord Rees:

Yes. Well, I think this is a very, very important thing which I address in one of my books, that we can, if we have the will, move towards net-zero in the rich countries to the north. Whether we are going to is another matter, but we have the technology and we could do that. But of course, the countries of the global south at the moment are producing far less energy per capita than we are in the north, but there are more of them, and by 2050 there'll be four billion people in the global south, I mean India and Sub-Saharan Africa, et cetera. And we want them to develop, they'll need more energy per capita, and it'll be no good if we in the north have achieved net-zero if at the same time by 2050 the global south is producing as much CO2 as we in the north are today.

And so as you say, we've got to ensure that they can leapfrog directly from what they're doing now, which is very low consumption of energy and often rather primitive techniques, directly to clean energy bypassing coal and oil. And that's very hard, but we've got to see if this can be done. And it's rather like they all leapfrog directly to mobile phones never having had landlines throughout Africa. And so in the same way we would hope that we can collaborate with them and it can't be neo-colonialism, it's got to be through helping their technology and we've got to ensure that they can develop clean energy on a scale to suit their own countries.

Lord Speaker:

And the thorny question of redistribution of resources, would that have to be involved?

Lord Rees:

The inequalities within nations between the richest and the poorest and the equality between nations, the global north and those in the south are of course unacceptably large. And we need a political system that gradually reduces them, and we should do that and help the global south to advance. And this is not just for altruistic reasons. If that doesn't happen, then I think we can expect continual disruption and of course massive migration because the one thing which they do have in the globalist south is the ability to travel and also the knowledge of what's happening. They all have TVs or smartphones and things like that, so they know the injustice of their fate.

It's not like 100 years ago when they were living lives separate from the rest of the world that didn't know what they're missing. So I think for all these reasons, we've got to ensure that there's a levelling between nations as well as within nations. And this is going to, I think, involve something which is a mega version of the post-World War II Marshall Plan and Lendlease and things like that whereby we invest in the global south and help it to develop.

Lord Speaker:

And you've advocated the establishment of supranational institutions to fight climate change and others with an appropriate regulatory framework. Does that apply to AI as well as these other subjects?

Lord Rees:

Certainly. I think the special problem of AI is that the main players are now multinational conglomerates as we know, which are dominating the world's market. And it's very hard to tax these companies properly and for the same reasons can be very hard to enforce regulations on them. But we've got to try and it's good that it starts being made in a number of ways to try and get agreed regulations, but of course, the fact that there's a few really dominant players in the market makes it more difficult for nations to assert themselves even in collaboration. But I think it's very important to ensure that there is regulation of these new technologies.

Lord Speaker:

Now you've made the case for carers to have increased conditions in that, I suppose with an ageing society, their role is going to be more important.

Lord Rees:

It is, of course, it depends not simply on the ageing society, but the trajectory of our health. I mean, if we have a long and slow decline, it's going to be far worse in terms of the number of healthcare workers needed in the population. So the idea is to extend healthy years of life and not those where we are dependent on others. Whether that could happen, I don't know. Of course there are some people who want to extend the lifespan in a big way. There're three labs, two in California and one actually in Cambridge called Altos Labs, which are bankrolled by billionaires who want to extend their lifespan and live much longer. And I rather hope they won't succeed because this would be a fundamental new kind of inequality.

And the way I would see it is that these billionaires when they were young, they wanted to be rich, now they're rich, they want to be young again, and that's not quite so easy to arrange. And if they could arrange it, that would be perhaps not good for society. But on the other hand, extending the healthy lifespan for everyone and extending medical knowledge is surely a good thing. And that's going to be something where we hope that AI may be able to help.

Lord Speaker:

Non-humans travelling huge distances and time spans, which humans cannot do, they're unattainable. I think you've made that point?

Lord Rees:

Yes, yes. I haven't answered the second part of your question about aliens. I think that there probably is some kind of life out there, a long way away on a planet orbiting other stars, whether it's anything like us at all, I don't know. I mean, I think it's probably something unrecognisably different. And I also, I'm sceptical about the idea of a human space flight being worthwhile. As you know, humans went to the moon 50 years ago, and we are old enough to remember that. And I certainly thought it'd only be 10 years before the footprints on Mars, but of course that didn't happen and people haven't even been back to the moon. I talk about that. But now that robots can do the things that humans were needed for 50 years ago, the case for sending people is getting weaker all the time.

So my line on the human space flight is that it should not be funded publicly, certainly not by government agencies because they've got to be very safety conscious and that makes it very expensive. Robots can do all the practical things, assembling big structures in space and exploring the surface of Mars and all that. If humans want to fly into space as an adventure, then perhaps they can be supported by sponsorship or the billionaires. We know that Messrs Musk and Bezos are spending billions on space exploration and they could perhaps launch the kind of people, adventurers prepared to accept a very high risk and therefore be launched much more cheaply. So my line is that robots should do all the practical things and only people who really have a high appetite for risk should be going into space, and they should be privately funded, not by the rest of us.

Lord Speaker:

You mentioned Musk. He has indicated that humans could live on the moon or Mars, but I think the point you made is that space travel will not sort out the problems that we have on earth.

Lord Rees:

Yes, I mean, I disagree with him on that. I think there might be a few crazy pioneers living on Mars, just like there are people living at the South Pole, although it's far less hospitable than the South Pole, but the idea of mass migration to avoid the earth's problems, which he and a few other space enthusiasts adopt, that I think is a dangerous illusion. I don't think it's realistic and we've got to solve those problems here on earth. Dealing with climate change on earth is a doddle compared to making Mars habitable. So I don't think we should hold that out as a long-term aim at all.

So I don't agree with him, but I think he is an extraordinary figure, and I think we've got to hand it to him that despite being a rather strange personality, he's got great achievements in that he's transformed two major industries, electric cars and rockets, because in fact, more than 100 rockets per year are rockets that he's made, the Falcon Rockets and there've been more than 100 launched with no failures at all. And so he has done a much better job than the big conglomerates that used to work for NASA in producing efficient rockets, which can be reused, and that will make it cheaper to actually send stuff into space and more feasible to have some engineering done in space and even solar energy gathered from space.

Lord Speaker:

The advances that scientists and technologists will make, do they need a wider buy-in from society and politicians? And if they do, how do you envisage that turning out?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think much of innovative science is best supported by the public purse, whether it's in universities or in standalone research institutes is a different matter. That's a separate debate, but pre-competitive research is best done and supported publicly. And I think one thing we've got to do is to ensure that the UK is a leading player in this. We have a very strong tradition in research and we don't have much in the way of raw materials. So I think it's fair to say that if we don't get smarter, we'll get poorer. So let's ensure that our science is well-supported. The last few years has been rather worrying, the Brexit and the loss of the support from the European Research Council, Horizon, et cetera, that made the UK less attractive. And so we've had more people leaving the UK for other countries than attracting, what we want is to make this country an attractive place for doing research. And that probably does involve some slight changes and not doing something we're doing now like charging huge amounts of money for visas.

Lord Speaker:

With a world of technology, our young people in education, and you have a real passion for that, they need to understand science more. What way should the curriculum be changed to ensure that that's the outcome?

Lord Rees:

Yes. Well, I think that's a very important question because more people now accept we need to have a broader curriculum. Post 16, we shouldn't have specialised A levels, we should have a technical stream and all that and give people more choice so that a choice made at 16 doesn't foreclose what happens later when you have to make a decision for higher education. And I think that's generally accepted. What's happening now all too often is that young people, who when they're very young are fascinated by dinosaurs and space and all that, they aren't sufficiently well taught to maintain that enthusiasm. And when they get to age 16, when as you know they have to decide on specialisations for their A levels, many of them drop science. And that forecloses the option.

Lord Speaker:

Particularly physics.

Lord Rees:

Yeah. And that forecloses the option at age 18 plus of going back and doing a specialised science course. So we've got to keep options open to the age of 18 and have less specialisation. And I would go further than that.

I think we've got to make our higher education more flexible. We want to have a mixture of technical and academic education post 18, and we also want to get away from the view that universities are to provide three-year courses between the age of 18 and 21 for full-time residential students, we need to give people a chance to intermit and come back later. At the moment, one thing that's wrong, for instance, is that if you're a student and you go to university at 18, and if things don't work out for you, you have problems and you drop out after two years, then you are dismissed as wastage and your university vice chancellor is berated for the wastage and there's an incentive to lower the quality of the degree, which is not a good idea. What should happen instead is that someone in that position should get a certificate.

They should say, I've had two years of college and have the opportunity to go back and do more courses at a later stage and any time through life, indeed. And the government in a small way has moved in the right direction by the lifelong learning entitlement - a loan rather the grant. So I think we need to move in that direction. And I think we also need to ensure that people can do a mixture of online learning and residential learning to enable people of a mature age to participate. I don't think online learning alone works except for motivated mature people doing a professional master's degree or something like that. You need to have a mixture, but I think we can learn something from the development of online teaching. But I think the main thing is that we need to make access to higher education, and that includes technical education more open and more flexible so that you can accumulate credits through life.

Lord Speaker:

And do you think lifelong learning can assist and enrich people's lives and wellbeing?

Lord Rees:

Oh, definitely. I think it can. Yes. And of course it doesn't have to be formal. Of course, once people get the bug that it's good to read a lot, then they can learn informally. There's a difference between formal education and education, but I think it should be possible for people to get education when they want it without financial sacrifice.

Lord Speaker:

And maybe as a launchpad, models like the Open University.

Lord Rees:

Well, the open university was a great pioneering achievement of course.

Lord Speaker:

And I did a degree there...

Lord Rees:

Yes, and I think that showed that there is a demand, and it could be far better now when we have far better online facilities than they had with late night TV programmes in effect, weren't they? And so we could do far better. And so I think that's a real model. And I think also that's a model that could be spread around the world.

Lord Speaker:

Science, technology, engineering, and maths, STEM subjects. You've been very strong in them, but you've also added another subject, arts, to make it STEAM.

Lord Rees:

Yes.

Lord Speaker:

Why is art so important not just to the culture, but to the political process?

Lord Rees:

Well, I think it's very important that people should study the arts, and especially if they can actively pursue an art and creative art, that's very good for everyone. But I think education in languages, for instance, shouldn't be allowed to lapse as is happening now. And I think that clearly just as I deplore the fact that people don't know the difference between a proton and a protein, it's equally sad if they can't find Taiwan or Iran on a map. And many people can't do that, or if they don't know the basic literature of their country and the history of their country. So I think wide education ought to include the subject which are typecast as humanities, as well as science. So when I said that everyone should understand basic science and their environment, the same thing goes for understanding the history of their country and the language.

Lord Speaker:

The distinguished historian Simon Schama made programmes with the BBC where he said that the culture and arts have an impact on politics and a very important impact. How do you see that? What's your view?

Lord Rees:

Well, I mean, I think that politicians ought to certainly be aware of history. If I could say something which is against science, if we have a senior politician, I'd rather they got a PhD in history than in dentistry, for instance, because one is more relevant to the decisions they have to take. So I certainly think that we want to have politicians who know the background context to the decisions they're making. That's crucially important.

Lord Speaker:

You have thought very deeply about the future of humankind. And when you look into the future, would you say that you're fundamentally a techno pessimist or a techno optimist?

Lord Rees:

I would say I'm a techno optimist but a political pessimist, in that I think we already have the scientific knowledge that would enable us to provide a lifestyle like we have in this country for everyone in the world. But we're not heading that way at all. And the reason for that is the politics. It's very, very hard to arrange to reduce these inequalities and all that. So I'm a scientific optimist and I think science is going to continue to increase the scope of what we're doing. But the downside is that politicians haven't proved very effective at the international relations that would lead to the benefits being spread. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, the advances in science give new deeper downsides as well as more exciting upsides. And so we've got to ensure that we can harness the benefits and minimise the downsides.

But I think the main thing that I'm pessimistic about is the politics, which is going to make it very, very hard to collaborate and also to move towards a world that's sustainable because we know that we have to minimise the risk of pandemics and all that sort of thing. But we know also that if we go in as we are now, we are heading for a world that's going to be depleted in many ways with mass extinctions and all that sort of thing. And so there's a risk that we will leave a worse world for our descendants, and I think that's something which we should feel ashamed of given what we have benefited from generations past.

Lord Speaker:

And you say that the electoral cycle of four to five years works against these scientific ambitions?

Lord Rees:

I think it does, and I think we could get round that by having more commissions outside politics so that there's an acceptance that they're decided in the way, like the Bank of England and all that, which don't reverse policies when the government changes. I think that's one thing that we ought to be able to do. I think apart from that, we've got to perhaps accept that we delegate more authorities to multinational bodies. We already have the International Atomic Energy Agency, we have the World Health Organisation. I think we need an international body to deal with AI and all those issues, and I think for biosecurity, et cetera, and maybe others. So I think we've got to accept that many of the challenges we face can't be tackled by each nation separately, and so we need to delegate more of our national decisions to an international body.

Lord Speaker:

In the defence area, what are your worries about the future with automatic weapons, which some distinguished scientists would say there's no control, no regulation on it at the moment.

Lord Rees:

Well, it is a worry of course, automatic weapons, which are not under direct human control and things can happen very quickly, so that a third world war could be over in a day. So we've got to avoid that kind of situation. And I think we've also got to avoid the introduction of new weapons, bio and all that. And also nuclear weapons of course, which have been with us for 70 years. We've avoided through luck as much as judgement, nuclear exchange. I mean, at the time of the Cuba crisis, Kennedy said that the risk was between one in three and evens. And McNamara in his later years you remember, said that they were lucky rather than wise in order to avoid catastrophe at that time.

And there were many near misses. And I think that it is also a new class of threats and something which we discuss at our centre in Cambridge, that if the command and control system for nuclear weapons is sort of automated, then of course there's a risk that people will be overconfident about how reliable it is and can't tolerate any kind of probability of things going wrong in something as colossal as that.

Lord Speaker:

Yeah, in the Cuban missile crisis, I think President Kennedy, in his own words, didn't take the advice of the chiefs of the defence staff, but deliberated on the issue and discerned it and established a personal relationship with Khrushchev in Russia. So we need sensible politicians. What advice do you have for making politicians sensible?

Lord Rees:

Now we need on a bigger scale, people to be prepared to make decisions, and they will do that if the public is behind them and the public will only get behind them if there are charismatic influencers who do persuade them. And in my book I mention a rather disparate quartet of influencers on my list. The first is Pope Francis, who's encyclical in 2015.

Lord Speaker:

Oh, Laudato si'

Lord Rees:

Yeah, the Laudato si', that was the first time a Pope had stated that humans have a responsibility to the rest of creation and don't just have dominion over it, which was a traditional view. And he had a standing ovation at the UN, and he made a big impact on forging the consensus at the 2015 Climate Conference. He did that. And so he's my first. My second is our secular Pope David Attenborough, who is worldwide being a leader, influencer of getting people to care about nature and the problem it's in. And two others, Bill Gates, who I think deserves credit for being someone who talks sensibly about technology and points out it isn't reasonable with our known knowledge of technology to move towards net-zero and all that.

And fourth, Greta Thunberg, who's enthused a whole younger generation, and of course the younger generation who will be alive at the end of the century. They're naturally the ones who care most about this, but we ought to care about the lives of our grandchildren and care equally about this. So it's influencers like that who may be more charismatic than the average scientist, and they can help to raise these issues on the public agenda in competition with the noise level from urgent policy questions, which politicians clearly get preoccupied with for most of their time.

Lord Speaker:

Well, Lord Rees, not just I'm delighted but privileged to have you along. This has been a fascinating experience for me, and I hope when this is made, that many people will listen seriously to you, not least the politicians. So thank you for your wisdom.

Lord Rees:

Thank you very much.

 

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